Years after funds were allocated to help bridge regional economic divides in the UK, 57% of levelling up initiatives remain unfinished, highlighting how initial promises of quick regional development have stalled. The figures show many communities are still waiting for those ambitions to become reality, with 57% of projects still unfinished.
Freedom of information data analyzed up to May this year revealed that 821 out of 1,347 approved levelling up projects were still incomplete. In total, 73 council areas that received funding approvals had not seen a single initiative reach completion. Though 59 projects have since been finalized following the data collection, nationwide progress remains sluggish. Across the UK, 73 council areas that had a bid for a project accepted were yet to see a single one fully completed. But it is possible some completed projects may be missing from the data, has attempted to correct for this using published online announcements.
Project delivery was notably slower in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland despite their lower overall count of initiatives. In England, the North West and Yorkshire experienced similarly low completion rates, even though both regions were allocated the highest total number of schemes.
The ambitious regional equality drive was originally championed by Boris Johnson’s administration following its 2019 election victory, with Michael Gove heading the agenda to revitalize struggling communities. The figures track three main funding streams: the Future High Streets Fund launched in 2018, Town Deals introduced in 2019, and the Levelling Up Fund created in 2021. National totals exclude 69 initiatives that were cancelled or merged into existing programs. Boris Johnson’s government swept to power in 2019 after promising to revive left-behind towns and spread opportunity as part of a levelling up agenda headed by Michael Gove. She said: “The levelling up – the ‘hanging baskets strategy’ as it was called – was short-term pots of money that could help clean up high streets and make tangible and important improvements.
Deadlines for these funds have repeatedly shifted over time. The Future High Streets Fund was initially intended to wrap up in March 2024, whereas the Towns Fund and Levelling Up Fund carried official spending limits of March 2026. Under the current Labour administration, the Levelling Up Fund and Town Deals were consolidated into the Local Regeneration Fund, pushing the final delivery cutoff to March 2028. This is my worry with the current programme of neighbourhood boards.
Inflation has been a primary driver of these delays, as surging development costs forced local councils to pause or shrink the scope of their planned works.
Council areas such as Blackburn with Darwen have yet to complete any of their eight funded initiatives.
Similarly, all eight schemes approved in Leeds remain unclosed, including five in Morley covering a town hall restoration, a learning center, transport links, green spaces, and a heritage program, alongside incomplete housing and community center projects in Holbeck. “It was all a bit sort of unsightly and pork barrelly.”.
Jack Shaw, director of Groundwork Research, which provided the figures, noted that significant funding failed to yield rapid local improvements. While describing Labour’s newly introduced £5.8bn Pride in Place programme—which provides £2m annually to communities over ten years—as a step forward, he emphasized that future policies must accelerate how capital reaches local public realms. According to jack Shaw, the director of Groundwork Research, which supplied the data to,, It showed a large gap between the intentions of levelling up and what had been delivered. “The Pride in Place programme is a step forward because it provides communities with £2m a year over 10 years, giving places the certainty and time to deliver visible, lasting improvements. “But in future the government also needs to look at how investment can reach communities more quickly, so that funding announced at this budget can improve neighbourhoods over the course of this parliament, whether that be through new social infrastructure or a better public realm.”. There looked to be degrees of pork barrel politics rolled into which places got it. The chief executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, warned Labour’s Pride in Place programme could face similar pitfalls to the Tories’ towns fund, sarah Longlands. Capital money takes time – you just can’t throw stuff up. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We are committed to driving good growth in every postcode, giving local leaders stability through long-term targeted funding. Can a £5.8bn scheme help revive Grimsby and other town centres.
Experts have also criticized the structural design of the initial programs. Zoë Billingham, director of the IPPR North thinktank, argued that the earlier approach created a “begging bowl culture” dependent on centralized Whitehall decisions and short-term grants rather than sustainable regeneration. Andy Haldane, former chief economist at the Bank of England, similarly characterized the centralized process as “better than nothing” yet marred by He said: “It was in some ways the kind of worst of Whitehall.
