MERSEYSIDE can be "confident" it will still receive crucial European development aid, despite a shake-up that will hand decision-making to London, Vince Cable insisted yesterday.
The Business Secretary said match funding would be available even after the axing of the body – the Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) – that currently provides most of that cash.
The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) has pledged £250m to Merseyside over seven years to 2013 – but grants are denied without match funding.
Labour MPs have raised fears that funding will dry up once responsibility is transferred to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), which will lose 60% of its budget by 2015.
Across the country, a total of £1.9bn was still to be spent from the fund by last November – around 65% of the £3bn that is due to be delivered.
Quizzed by the Daily Post about the prospects for aid to Merseyside, Mr Cable replied: "I think it can have a good level of confidence.
"We realised there were quite a lot of transitional problems once you get rid of the regional development agencies. We are trying to manage them, including having a capacity to get European projects launched and then funding them.
"There is a unit in DCLG that's doing this. My department is working with them and we are confident that we have the capacity to handle it. There is a lot of emphasis on regional development and institutions like the regional growth fund are there precisely to provide the counterpart funding."
However, the growth fund was four times oversubscribed when bidding closed last week – attracting applications for well over £2bn, with only £450m on offer.
Luciana Berger, Labour MP for Wavertree, said Mr Cable had failed to clear up the uncertainties, adding: "This is a very serious issue and we have had no tangible answer from the Government about how they will deal with it. It is not acceptable to defer everything to this miraculous pot they call the Regional Growth Fund."
At present, a team of council and business leaders at the NWDA assesses projects applying for cash and provides most of the match funding – including for the building of the Echo Arena and BT Convention Centre.
