Cllr Tony Ferrari, Dorset Council’s Portfolio Holder for Economic Growth, is seeking suggestions for local infrastructure projects in Weymouth and Portland which could be included as part of a bid for the Government’s ‘Levelling Up’ fund. The bid will be submitted jointly by Dorset Council and Richard Drax MP in June, with support from Weymouth and Portland Town Councils and local businesses.
Local residents are asked to submit their proposals for local projects which could be included in the funding bid, by emailing comms@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk by 7 May.
The Levelling Up fund was announced as part of the Chancellor’s budget in March this year and is a competitive fund for which areas across the UK can submit bids. Each area can submit a bid of up to £20 million in total. The fund is for projects which will provide “infrastructure that improves everyday life”. These include:
- smaller transport projects which make a genuine difference to local areas
- town centre and high street regeneration
- support for maintaining and expanding the UK’s world-leading portfolio of cultural and heritage assets.
The Government is clear that “investment proposals should focus on supporting high priority projects that will make a visible impact in local areas”.
Dorset as a county is in the lowest priority category for Levelling Up funding, with both the Dorset Council and BCP areas being in the lowest category 3 grouping. Government has been clear in the prospectus that preference will be given to bids from higher priority areas. However, lower priority areas are still able to submit bids.
Cllr Tony Ferrari, Portfolio Holder for Economic Growth, Assets and Property, with special responsibility for Regeneration and Development in Weymouth, said:
“I believe that if the Portland and Weymouth areas were considered in isolation they would be in a higher category in the Government’s priorities and would therefore be more likely to secure funding. It is for this reason that I think we should make a bid for this area and explain the exceptional circumstances.
“We must be realistic about our chances of securing funding but, if we don’t try, we definitely won’t get anything.
“All of the suggestions will be considered and kept. We will submit those that we think have the best chance of success. The rest will be retained for possible future bidding opportunities to Government.”
Fantastic idea and very proactive. I love the ambition for equality.
My suggestions would be to offer emloyment opportunuties, develop local economy and promote tourist attraction.
On the old ferry terminal port an ice skating rinc.
Brewers quay, back to a emporium on the two floors. Upper floors studios from dance to art.
Old bowling rinc a multi use centre for youth and vulnerable groups.
Provide a bypass for Chideock. Residents have shortened lives and may be dying because of the pollution in Chideock. Recorded AS THE MOST polluted place in the UK. That’ without any measurement of of PM 2.5. Chideock is a city centre in a rural location.
Get funding to pay Virgin Media to finally cable up Weymouth and surrounding areas tha are currently Virgin Media cable TV free and look like they never will be if Virgin have anything to do with it.
So pleased to see thoughts on revitalising the area around Hope square, in particular the brewery building, in desparate need of saving for a variety of uses. Fits the bill both in terms of improving business opportunities and developing cultural and heritage assets. There could also be opportunities for alternative employment and skills training away from the low paid hospitality sector that has traditionally prevailed in Weymouth. The museum desperately needs more and better space and there is room for performance and film screen facilities, retail, art gallery ….the list is endless. I will be alerting the Weymouth and Portland History Facebook group of which I am a member. Thanks
Invest in education. Let’s see education as the engine that drives social mobility. We didn’t get Opportunity Area Funding, so how could this funding stream give Weymouth and Portland similar advantages? One idea might be to put a bid in for every school to have linked support with ‘Achievement for All’, a whole school improvement programme that aims to improve academic and social outcomes of pupils. Only 45% of children in Weymouth and Portland currently attend a Good or better school. This investment in ‘Achievement for All’ could turn this around. However, our schools need to be consulted as they may have better ideas on how to drive these improvements in achievement for all children.
You must include a bowling alley, a leisure facility for all ages, and all weathers.
Also time Brewers Quay was recognised as it was an all weather tourist attraction. Council investment can only add to Weymouth, and benefit local people .
You must include a bowling alley, a leisure facility for all ages, and all weathers.
Also time Brewers Quay was recognised as it was an all weather tourist attraction. Council investment can only add to Weymouth, and benefit local people .
Build a maritime museum on the Peninsula site with doors that could also take visitors to look around a visiting tall ship tied up adjacent to it. Ships like the brig Royalist, the nao Victoria a replica of Magellan’s round the World ship and many of the other ones that used to come into Weymouth when the harbour was intact and they made money from visitors going on board. Weymouth and Portland have a rich maritime history from Roman times (amphora neck found off Chesil Beach dated 200AD) even until the very present days with the cruise liners now anchored in Weymouth Roads where ships have anchored through the centuries. The pirate Thomas Walton, aka ‘Purser’, waited outside the harbour and attacked ships trading to and from St Rochelle, when the Weymouth & Melcombe traders got fed up and sent ships out to attack him and slew 7 of his crew. He slunk off to Studland an area rife with pirates as he and Clinton Atkinson were “two of the most notorious pyrates during Qun Elizabeth’s reigne”. Many of the thousands of shipwrecks, sailing ships, Roman 200 AD artefacts, BC artefacts, WW1, WW2, Deadman’s Bay wrecks both wooden, iron and steel, U boats, Battleships like the Hood and Formidable, HM submarines like the aircraft carrying M2 around the coast have been identified and many artefacts have been recovered but have nowhere to be displayed and our history told. Weymouth Museum could be incorporated into it and they qualified for a Lottery grant last year but had no permanent location so had to turn it down. There are many ways of displaying wrecks still on the seabed as there are better underwater cameras, sidescan displays and photogrammetry that can produce 3D representations, much of it pioneered here, of which we can give you a demonstration. Weymouth and Melcombe Regis were, together with Southampton, the prime ports for privateering in the late 16th century and early 17th century with traders from London and Bristol moving here to finance privateering operations making millions in today’s money from capturing ships and their cargoes. The Old Rooms Tudor house was privateer and mayor Thomas Geir’s house. Privateer John Bond who had his HQ where Tesco is in Weymouth Town Centre was Mayor for many years, (councillors didn’t pay petty customs). He sailed with Basil RIngrose to St Domingo where he found a large stone globe the Spaniards had made after being given the World by the Pope when they found the New World. Bond noticed it had a Latin inscription “Non Suffecit Orbis” meaning the World Is Not Enough, and decided it would make a good motto above his house in Lutton, Swanage. Ian Fleming went to school in Swanage and it became the eponymous book and film. We supplied 6 local ships to the English Fleet to fight the Spanish Armada with one Spanish galleon, the San Salvador brought into Weymouth and its powder, shot and cannons removed to provision English ships further up the Channel. The first plane flew from HMS Hibernia off Portland in 1912, and some of the first seaplanes were based at Portland, The Channel Islands’ ferry St Julien was transformed into a Hospital Carrier during WW2 from Dunkirk, Scapa Flow, Operation Husky along the North African coast then Sicily, Salerno and Anzio before returning for D Day +1 when she hit a mine and had a large hole blown in her bow, was abandoned but as she wasn’t sinking, was re-manned and towed sternwards to Southampton where she was repaired and was off the Juno Beaches 3 weeks later and then Arromanches and all the French ports when they were liberated. We had the Royal Naval base plus the RN airbase, AUWE, Whiteheads torpedo works, the Portland Spy Case and on and on as new things are found both in the archives and underwater. It is a treasure that we have but don’t exploit.