Amos welcomes £20m funding for Wellington

News that Wellington has been awarded nearly £20 million of Government funding has been welcomed by Gideon Amos, the area’s Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate.

The grant aid, announced yesterday, will allow Somerset Council – working in partnership with stakeholders and the community – to transform and regenerate the nationally significant heritage site at Toneworks and enhance associated land for community use.

The application for support from the Government's Levelling Up Fund was originally turned down back in January.

Mr Amos said “Wellington’s great Toneworks and Tonedale project is a testament to the belief in the town and its future shown by Wellingtonians and the Lib Dem district council and its staff.

“They began the project, before that council was forcibly merged into Somerset Council by the Conservatives - and the success of this funding application is mainly thanks to the council team who did all the work putting it together. 

“Their achievement here is fantastic and I pay credit to them especially after, for almost a year, the Government disgracefully refused to put its share into the pot to match fund all the local support and effort which had been put in. 

“Just like the Wellington station idea – first proposed in Parliament by Lib Dem MP Jeremy Browne in 2014 – we need to work together across political parties to secure the best outcome possible. 

“I genuinely hope that, even if only because a General Election is now looming, the Conservatives will discover even more funding for projects in Wellington and Taunton which previously weren’t supported”. 

“For example, this week many older and disabled people in Somerset are desperately hoping this Government will decide, at last, to honour their twice broken promise to bring in the funding needed for social care.

“Unless councils like Somerset, Kent and Hampshire can afford to meet people’s genuine needs for help, they will continue to go wanting.

“Just like the loss of NHS dentists, queues of ambulances at hospitals, sewage being pumped into our rivers for private profit and integrity in the Government falling off a cliff - it feels like the Conservative policies have broken Britain.”