Lancashire's Levelling Up Fund Bid

It's our ambition to make Lancashire the best place for people to live, work, visit and prosper.

To support economic growth and job creation across the county, as well as improving the health of Lancashire's residents, we are applying to the government's Levelling Up Fund. If our bid is successful, the funds will deliver safer and healthier streets, improved public transport, and more walking and cycling that will improve the health of residents.

We've assessed lots of data to identify areas that would benefit from the Levelling Up Fund, including levels of employment, health, physical activity, air quality, car ownership, road accidents, walking and cycling, and bus and rail services.

Parts of East Lancashire would benefit the most, and had highest potential to meet the criteria of the fund

We want to know what people think would be useful in their local area. Your feedback will help us to understand what’s important in different areas, as well as helping us to develop our bid further.

About the Levelling Up Fund

The government's Levelling Up agenda is designed to improve opportunities for people across the UK by: 

• boosting productivity, pay, jobs and living standards by growing the private sector, especially in those places where they are lagging 
• spreading opportunities and improving public services, especially in those places where they are weakest 
• restoring a sense of community, local pride and belonging, especially in those places where they have been lost 
• empowering local leaders and communities, especially in those places lacking local agency

Find out more about the government's plans for levelling up

The Levelling Up Fund is designed to invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK. The £4.8 billion fund will support a range of schemes across the UK. County Councils can submit bids for local transport projects.

Lancashire's bid 

Our funding bid for Lancashire will focus on three themes that, when delivered in a joined-up way, could bring many benefits.  At this stage, we are looking at what might be possible to best serve our communities, whilst meeting the government's Levelling Up Fund bid criteria. 

If Lancashire's bid is successful, we could secure around £50 million in funding to develop a range of complementary projects that, when linked together, would significantly improve the quality of life and opportunities for people in East Lancashire. 

The themes for our bid are:

Liveable neighbourhoods

Liveable Neighbourhoods are streets and places that encourage walking, cycling and the use of public transport - especially for short journeys. 

Changes to local streets, paths and open spaces are made to make travel easier between homes, jobs, shops and services 

Public transport service improvements 

We want to improve public transport by introducing: 

• Real time information at bus stops
• Giving priority to buses in traffic
• Hubs that help to make smooth changes between walking, cycling, buses and trains

Find out more about Lancashire’s plans to improve bus services.

Active travel 

We want to help people to walk and cycle for local trips, such as going to work or to the shop.  

We’ll make physical improvements to routes that help people to walk or cycle.

This will include safer and quieter off-road routes, and more green space. 

Find out more about how we are supporting Active Travel.

About our bid

Next steps

Thank you to everyone who took part in our recent public engagement. Your feedback will be used to shape long term plans for improving our local travel in Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle and Rossendale, and will inform our bid to secure some of the government's Levelling Up funding.

If our bid is successful, we expect the schemes to be finished by late 2025.