New entity hoping for £20 million for projects across Devon

The Devon and Torbay combined county authority optimistic

The new entity that has been set up to boost Devon County Council and Torbay Council hopes to receive £20 million of government cash in its next funding round.

The combined county authority (CCA) was officially created in February and held its inaugural meeting this week (Wednesday 19 March), during which it outlined how it had spent its initial pot of £16 million on 16 projects.

The CCA’s chair, Cllr David Thomas (Conservative, Preston), who also leads Torbay Council, said he expects money for the forthcoming financial year to be announced in April.

“I’d like it to be considerably more [than the £16 million] but in reality, if you were pushing me for a figure, I’d go for around £20 million,” he said.

“That’s the kind of ballpark figure realistically.”

The CCA meeting heard that the first round of funding has to be spent on the projects in the next two weeks, although there was some concern about whether this could be done.

However, Cllr Thomas said none of the money would be returned to government.

“The money won’t be going back, but the timeline was incredibly tight so organisations which were beneficiaries had to have shovel-ready schemes to make it work,” he said.

Keri Denton, director of performance and partnerships at Devon County Council, said various delays, including the general election and recent announcements about local government reorganisation, meant the council only had six months to deliver £16 million worth of activity”.

“That’s not something we ordinarily do, so it has been a challenge,” she said.

“We have had some significant dialogue with the Ministry for Homes, Communities and Local Government about the 31 March deadline for spending the money, and we have taken a lot of management actions to ensure we can spend it by the due date, and evidence the spending and still allow some projects the flexibility they need.”

After the inaugural meeting of the CCA board, the members visited a housing project in Tavistock that had received £325,000.

The scheme, on Plymouth Road, involved redeveloping a property owned by West Devon Borough Council to provide three units of supported accommodation.

The biggest single recipients were Exeter City Council, which was given £2 million to retrofit 50 social housing properties with energy efficient measures and low-carbon technology, East Devon District Council’s nearly £2 million for the modular community and commercial hub at Cranbrook, while North Devon Council secured nearly £1.9 million to refurbish 11 low-quality, poorly converted properties so it can re-let them as an “ethical landlord”.

In total, more than £8 million was spent on housing projects, with other funding focused on areas including adult education and training, green infrastructure, including North Devon’s first university research centre – the Appledore Clean Maritime Innovation Centre – and net zero initiatives, such as green business grants.

The CCA is designed to be a conduit for government cash, some of which may not have been accessible by individual projects or councils.