Our look at political views on The Workington Town Deal

As work on the Workington Town Deal begins, we have spoken to community leaders and the residents of the town who this deal will affect the most.

Former leader of Allerdale Borough Council Alan Smith has criticised the Conservative plans, suggesting that the town deal is 'pale in comparison' to some of the ideas that the former Labour administration had envisaged for the town.

Mr Smith said: “These plans include around 70 per cent of the plans that the former administration led by Labour had in mind, but the sports village is a poor relation of the sports stadium which was envisaged and would have included national health service facilities and Sellafield in the office space.

"They have earmarked £12million for this sports village – but this is a poor relation to the one that we had planned; it is one additional stand and some changing rooms and that is going to cost £12million.

“The stadium was going to cost £25million but was a fully-funded project,  planned for by the previous administration, and would have been built by now.

"It’s took them three years and it’s still a long way from being shovel-ready. They have wasted three years.

“They have messed about with this town deal when we were going to do it off our own backs, like we did with the sports centre. We didn’t go to the government for the money, we sorted that, and we built that as a Labour administration.

“The £25million was to come from a developer and then we would have made money from it. Just like we make money from the Workington shopping centre which was funded in exactly the same way.

“But Jenkinson blocked it saying it would cost the council £95million which was just nonsense – he stopped the sports stadium because it was a Labour idea.

“I hope the Sports Village gets the match funding that is still needed and can go ahead. It’s better than what we have now. But it will be a pale shadow of what we could have had if it hadn’t been scrapped out of political spite.

"And the Town Deal funding could have been spent on another much-needed development project.”

'The Town Deal will be a game-changer for Allerdale'

But the former leader was criticised by Workington MP Mark Jenkinson - who said that even an Allerdale chief executive had told the MP personally that this deal would be a 'game changer' for the constituency.

Mr Jenkinson said: "Boris’s £23million Workington Town Deal is part of a wider scheme of levelling up investment in the Workington constituency.

"The job creation, the land remediation and the social value that is set to be delivered in the next three years is unprecedented.

"While previously everything was focused in Workington, I have concentrated my efforts on securing funding across the constituency – including the £14million to deliver regeneration plans in Maryport, which Labour had no plans to fund.

"The chief executive that served under Councillor Smith told me that the Town Deal alone would be a ‘game-changer’ for Allerdale if it came to pass.

"It did come to pass – and now represents less than half of the investment by this Conservative government that I’ve managed to secure, while we continue to create plans to make my constituency a centre of manufacturing and engineering excellence.

"It is a shame that all Labour ever bring to the table is grievance and negativity in opposition, and blame when in power. Their neglect, whether that be the refusal to take central government funding or standing idly by while we lost much of our major industry, is why we find ourselves in need of ‘levelling up’.

"While they sat by and watched Maryport lose its swimming pool, I’ve worked to secure a new one. While Labour councils, a Labour MP and a Labour government all watched as we lost our steelworks, we  now have a Conservative government that will stop at nothing to protect and grow our steel industry.

"While they moan in parliament about opening a new coking coal mine in Whitehaven, we have a Prime Minister and Business Minister who see the nonsense that would be importing it.

"The borrowing for the leisure centre – over budget and over time - remains a millstone round Allerdale’s neck that will be carried into the new Cumberland authority.

"While I’m confident about the future of Cumberland, we must not ever again let Labour ‘level down’ our services or our community.

"They can start by maintaining our weekly bin collection , saved by a Conservative administration, and not increasing our council tax which is the lowest in Cumbria thanks to Conservative fiscal prudence."

READ MORE: Workington Town Deal: What do the public think?