Project Story

Hyndburn is the 16th most deprived Local Authority in England and Wales and its largest town Accrington had suffered from a severe lack of investment, stakeholder collaboration and a regeneration strategy.

We were engaged by the council shortly after a visit from the High Streets Task Force and following an unsuccessful Towns Fund application and in anticipation of the upcoming Levelling Up Fund process.

The first step was to help build consensus and stakeholder buy-in which we did by helping form a Partnership Board with strong local leadership. Then we used official statistics, commissioned representative polling, undertook new analysis and workshops to develop the town's first ever ‘Town Centre Investment Plan’ - a 10 year strategy for regeneration and intervention.

Building on this strategy we have successfully secured £65m from the Levelling Up Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund and UK Shared Prosperity Fund in addition to Accrington being selected as a Long Term Plan for Towns place and collaboration with the County Council. This is an unprecedented amount of money for the town.

We used our expertise in the HM Treasury Green Book, DLUHC Appraisal Guide and DCMS Valuing Culture Guide all stages of the ‘five case model’ to develop successful applications and business cases which were some of the highest scoring in the country.

Our public affairs expertise also helped to secure a joint visit from the Prime Minister and Chancellor to coincide with the award of the second round of the Levelling Up Fund alongside national media.

We have now entered into a five year economics and regeneration partnership with Hyndburn that will see us undertake further business case work to secure funding, provide strategic advice on regeneration and better link them into conversations with national bodies and government.