Levelling Up Fund Round 3
How We Can Help
Using Green Book compliant business case principles, we help clients compile competitive bids for project funding, including completion of submissions aligned to the required guidance and templates. Our work covers specific Government funding programmes, including:
- Future High Streets Fund
- Town Deals
- Levelling Up Fund
- UK Community Renewal Fund
- UK Shared Prosperity Fund
- City deals
- County deals
The Importance of a Strong Funding Bid
Investing in infrastructure projects such as transport upgrades, regeneration, and town centre improvements can improve the lives of local residents in a number of ways. Transport upgrades can reduce carbon emissions, improve air quality, cut congestion and reduce journey times, support economic growth, and improve road safety. Regeneration and town centre improvement schemes are an investment in community infrastructure, can reduce crime, bring safe and accessible public services and community spaces to more people, and increase civic pride amongst local residents.
Projects are far more likely to deliver on these intended outcomes and benefits when properly scoped, planned, and costed from the outset. Preparation of a strong funding bid based on Green Book compliant business case principles provides decision makers and stakeholders with assurances that a project provides: strategic fit; social value; commercial viability; affordability and sustainability; and deliverability.
Our Approach
We recognise that each local area has its own assets, heritage, and strengths upon which to base its future economic growth. We therefore ensure that a local area’s unique character features prominently in our funding bid preparation. Each funding bid will differ depending on bid guidance and requirements, however our work on the economic and financial cases will typically include:
- Calculating the economic costs of the project: taking consideration of all capital costs over time (including project development, site acquisition, construction, and fit-out), and any revenue costs that can be capitalised, we calculate an optimism bias based on a number of factors (e.g. cost-price inflation). We also carry out a net present value analysis to discount costs over time.
- Calculating the economic benefits of the project: we gather information on the likely areas of the project’s benefits during both construction and operation, and use this to calculate the economic benefits of the project. Areas of economic benefit could include: land value uplift; new and better-quality jobs; higher wages and GVA; and higher level skills. can will consult with potential occupiers about the levels and types of employment and training they are likely to deliver and factor this into our analysis.
- Assessing the non-monetised benefits of the project: we identify the non-monetised or qualitative benefits of a project based on a theory-of-change approach. This looks at the challenges and opportunities faced, inputs, outputs, outcomes, and impacts.
- Calculating the value-for money delivered by the project: based on our analysis, we can determine the benefit to cost ratio of the project, and its net present value. We also undertake sensitivity analysis on both costs and benefits to identify any impacts on the project’s value-for-money calculation – this include identification of the switching values i.e. the level of cost increase or benefit decrease at which the project no longer provides value for money.
- Calculating the financial costs of the project: we calculate the financial costs of the project in line with best practice guidance. This allows for contingency, optimism bias, and inflation adjustments to be made in order to identify the funding ask.
We can also provide other support, including input to the strategic, commercial, and management cases, including monitoring and evaluation.
Projects
HJA supported two district councils in the preparation of successful bids for Round 2 of the Levelling Up Fund in 2022.
In 2021, HJA assisted Torbay Council and TDA to secure Town Deal funding and support, helping to prepare a Town Investment Plan to help secure £21.9 million of funding for economic regeneration in Torquay and subsequently develop business cases for eight projects.
In 2018, HJA conducted an appraisal and developed a business case for investment in public realm and infrastructure improvements in the Lansdowne business district of Bournemouth.
HJA supported two district councils in the preparation of successful bids for Round 2 of the Levelling Up Fund in 2022.
In 2021, HJA assisted Torbay Council and TDA to secure Town Deal funding and support, helping to prepare a Town Investment Plan to help secure £21.9 million of funding for economic regeneration in Torquay and subsequently develop business cases for eight projects.
