But he said Liverpool has a bright future.

“It is vastly exciting. I always believed this great city had the capacity to recover.

“One could never know how it would do it or what form it would take.

“Now there’s a momentum, it’s extremely exciting.”

He admitted that the new £1.4bn fund, which is available over three years, was nothing like the money that the soon-to-be-scrapped regional development agencies have spent in years gone by.

“When you have £1.4bn over three years it is not going to move mountains.

“There is no allocation criteria.

“Put yourself in my position trying to do the best for the taxpayer and create jobs, and then you have a good starting point.”

He admitted the panel would be “hard- nosed” about what it agreed to fund.

“It is about helping disadvantaged areas adversely affected by public sector cuts to create long term viable jobs.

“That’s what we are in the business of doing.

“Funding is open to all with the proviso that there is a (minimum) £1m ceiling.”

To get around this rule, four clearing banks will be used for the scheme agreeing to aggregate bids of less than £1m.

The banks will package together bids that cumulatively add up to £1m and then submit them to the panel for approval.

“If you put 50 applications of £20,000 that will add up to a bid of £1m.”