Ramsgate allocated £2.7m from government Future High Streets Fund

Ramsgate town Photo Brian Whitehead

Ramsgate has been allocated £2,704,213 of Government money, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick announced today (December 26). 

Ramsgate is one of 72 areas across England that will benefit from the £830 million Future High Streets Fund to improve the high street, as well as protect and create more jobs. 

The investment, which is provisional and needs to be finalised, aims to help Ramsgate recover from the pandemic while also driving long term growth making the High Street a place not just to shop but to enjoy as a destination in its own right.

The fund is to enable the delivery of ambitious regeneration plans and new local projects such as improvements to transport infrastructure, new homes and the transformation of underused spaces. 

Craig Mackinlay

South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay MP said: “I’m constantly working to ensure Ramsgate receives its fair share of government regeneration funding, combined with private, heritage-led regeneration. 

 “Retail is changing, not least because of Coronavirus and the resultant surge in online shopping. High Streets need to become places of leisure, entertainment and enjoyment; a place to visit in their own right, because, shopping incentive aside, they are great places to be.

 “Coastal towns like those in our South Thanet constituency are well placed to find this new role aided by the spending power of visitors and tourists. We are well placed to ride the wave of employment and economic success.”

Richard Styles

Ramsgate Town Council clerk Richard Styles said: “Ramsgate Town Council is very pleased that Ramsgate might be getting a substantial investment in its infrastructure. This will be the first time in over two decades that Ramsgate has received any investment of this sort.

“The Town Council and the Coastal Communities Team will want to see that the projects paid for by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are expedited quickly and efficiently in the ‘shovel ready’ manner required and promised by the applicant.

“This award -if we get it –  is but the first stage of a substantial investment process that will be needed to restore the local economy and to give it some resilience. We know this to be true, because Margate has received a total investment that may amount to as much as £150million over the last two decades. Hastings, Blackpool, and other coastal communities have also received similar or larger amounts.

“The House of Commons public accounts Committee noted the allocation of the much larger Towns Fund, where towns like Ramsgate missed out. We hope that the MHCLG will resolve this lacuna, quickly, in a fresh round of town deals.

“What we will want to show is that the MHCLG and any other grant funders, can have confidence that Ramsgate has viable ideas, proposals, and shovel ready schemes, that are worth investment to the magnitude received by Margate.

“Currently, Ramsgate is a net contributor in cash terms rather than a recipient over a very long period, unlike most other coastal communities; and this has a price in terms of its economy and the town’s resilience to adverse events or trends.”

Communities Secretary, Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP, said:  “The year ahead will be a big one for the high street as it seeks to recover, adapt and evolve as a result of the pandemic. Today’s £830 million investment from the Future High Streets Fund is one of many ways the Government is working to help our much-loved town centres get through this and prosper into the future.  

 “The role of high street has always evolved. We want to support that change and make sure that they are the beating heart of their local community – with high quality housing and leisure in addition to shops and restaurants. 

“This investment will help us build back better and make town centres a more attractive place to live, work and visit.” 

41 Comments

    • Disabled parking will make a huge difference for the very small number of disabled people, and do nothing for the rest of us.
      And we all pay taxes, disabled or not.

      • The multistorey already has considerable numbers of disabled spaces as do the other council carparks, where are further spaces needed?

  1. If the police did there job properly and got rid of the low life thugs in the town centre people may start shopping there again. TDC should reduce the parking fees as they have nearly doubled in price.

    • And no doubt westwoodcross doesn’t see why it should start charging. But if you want to encourage people back into the local highstreets getting rid of parking fees would be a good start.

      • Local councils shouldn’t be encouraging the use of cars. They should perhaps be subsiding public transport instead.

      • Westwood Cross’ parking is not actually free. The costs of maintaining parking spaces are built into the prices of the goods in the shops there.

        • And yet the prices are generally power or comparable to the high streets, so why does the council need to charge? Personal transport has been one of the greatest societal improvements of the last 50 years. In the days where people no longer work fixed shifts and fairly close to their homes , public transportis never going to be able to replace cars in the world we’ve built.

          • Mass use of private cars has caused enormous damage to the environment and to society and should be greatly reduced. It would be possible to have a very good public transport system if successive governments were willing to spend money on it.

  2. We could create something unique that we would enjoy and benefit from and that would become a destination venue for visitors. I think it should be about learning and doing and making, not exclusive, available to all, affordable and something that made us healthier and happier. I can imagine a large centre based on creativity and good food. Somewhere you could get involved in the making and doing.

      • Agree I dont understand this thinking that the arts are the great saviour of thanet. I really dont get. Yet the art sector gets millions and millions of our taxes thrown at it.

        The Turner Centre needs millions and millions all the time and has done very little to improve margate or thanet apart from a very small area around it for a few hundred yards.

        If I was ramsgate I would steer well clear of the arts and try to look at things that benefit all of ramsgate not just the arty farty people !

  3. I really can not be bothered with some of you miserable negative contradictive people on here over this holiday so I would like to thank Kathy for bring us IoTN and I hope some of you get a life in the New Year

  4. I’m sure all of the comments published here are written by people who already have “a life”, even the ones Lesley Peeling disagrees with.

    • You, Marva are not worth the effort my time is too precious to waste on you and I stand by what I said get a life or get a bus

      • … yet you keep on responding to Ms Rees’ comments.
        If you can’t cope with balanced, reasoned arguments, then scroll on by. Don’t keep on telling us that you haven’t got the time to respond: obviously you have.
        As to parking charges: there is plenty of free parking in town. Every one of the supermarkets has free parking; even Iceland and the Coop in Grange Road.
        Better to be part of the solution, not the problem.
        Get rid of your car, and save a fortune. And the planet.

        • Marva provides neither balanced nor reasoned arguments? she is obsessed with Westwood Cross and dog shite So before you lay in to me let me tell you I DO NOT DRIVE so parking is of little concern to me.I do not go out so you or anyone else can not blame me for ruining the planet so please feel free to stick that where the sun does not shine.

          • “my time is too precious to waste on you …”.
            You clearly have nothing better to do.
            You keep on replying, often telling us that you don’t have the time to reply.
            Do make up your mind

      • What does “Get a life or get a bus ” mean?

        Westwood Cross is hideous, unsuitable for pedestrians, and sells a huge amount of unnecessary rubbish. I am not obsessed with anything, let along dogshit.

        Perhaps you should go out, Ms Peeling, and have some contact with other human beings. Not going out at all is not healthy in any way.

  5. what people like you ,you mean?no thank you.you are a prime example of why I do not like people argumentative and always contradictory seriously not bothering with you anymore and work my comment out for yourself.

        • I don’t think the way you communicate with the total strangers on the comment threads is going to help you get over your alleged dislike of other people, Ms Peeling. I’m afraid your rudeness is simply annoying. I do hope you will be able to stop self-isolating soon and emerge into society, where you will be able to speak to other people again.

          • Stop niggling at me Marva you have done it ever since I started commenting on this site and you know what they say it takes a rude and annoying person to know one so now I am asking you politely GET OUT OF MY FACE

  6. I would like to see more communal fitness areas in Ramsgate, outside fitness equipment. Maybe it would help bring people together, get healthy and give the younger generation some inspiration and something to do, not just hang around the town.

    • I agree. We need somewhere that takes our health and happiness seriously. This is not about art as in a gallery but rather local people developing their creativity.

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