Rutland MP Alicia Kearns celebrates Levelling up funding of £23 million which will help Rutland County Museum and Rutland Memorial Hospital
Hold the press - I am absolutely delighted to announce that Rutland and Melton’s joint £23 million Levelling Up Bid has been successful, writes Rutland MP Alicia Kearns (Con).
I couldn’t have asked for a better start to 2023 and our bid will be truly transformative for our communities and help resolve many of our local problems.
For Rutland directly, £3.5m will firstly go towards creating an exciting national Medi-Tech Innovation Centre at Rutland Memorial Hospital.
This new centre of excellence will see the design of the technologies of the future to assist in healthier and safer older living – for example developing technology such as tablets you swallow that monitor when you’re dehydrated and alerts your carer. This centre of excellence will bring more clinicians to our communities which is a priority for us, and we also expect to get first access to these new medical technologies to help us all live more safely. Beyond this of course it will bring more high-quality jobs locally.
Secondly, £6.5m of our Levelling Up Funding will create a new on-demand rural bus network linking Rutland and Melton’s towns with stops in villages including Thistleton, Market Overton, Teigh, Ashwell, and Langham, based upon Rutland County Council’s Bus Service Investment Plan. This is one of the most common issues raised with me, and this service will enable more people to come together and access work and learning.
Finally, we’re all proud that Rutland is home to two incredible national treasures: the largest Ichthyosaur fossil in Europe and the remains of a stunning fourth Century Roman Villa with an exceptional mosaic, however neither of these assets can be displayed easily to the public. As part of the Levelling Up Funding £2m will go towards new galleries at Rutland County Museum, to digitally display these attractions. Not only will this project support the economic regeneration of Rutland, boosting footfall and visitor activity, but will also turn Rutland into a must-see cultural destination.
So all in all this funding will help us live healthier for longer, improve our clinical care, get us more easily to and from our homes, drive footfall to our towns, create jobs, and help end rural isolation. It also delivers on my promise to secure more funding from Government for us, with this once-in-a-generation funding.
I’m so grateful to our local leader councillor Lucy Stephenson and everyone at Rutland County Council for working together to put forward such an exceptional bid - our hard work has paid off making us one of the few councils to have such good news to share.
It was also a pleasure to welcome the Local Government Minister to Rutland to discuss our local funding needs. Rurality and social mobility are often overlooked in funding formulas, so it was great to have the opportunity to focus the Minister’s mind on Rutland.
In other local news, I am pleased to report that following recent feedback from our local farmers, Leicestershire and Rutland Police has created two new online reporting tools for reporting rural and wildlife crime. These dedicated forms will help our officers to better identify any trends and more effectively tackle rural crime.
It is a pleasure to work alongside our hard-working local police force, and last week I was invited for a ride along with one of our officers to see first-hand they work they do out and about in our local communities. It was also great last week to visit Brooke Priory Primary and meet Braunston Parish Council to discuss their priorities and how I can help.
