Passport to farce for Bacup Street bid

BACUP’S bid for funding from the Future High Street project descended into farce when the town was left thinking it had made it through the first round, only to find it hadn’t.

The confusion stems from Jake Berry, in his role as minister for the high street, telling Radio 4’s Today programme that Bacup had been ‘passported’ through to the next round.

Here in Rossendale, that was interpreted as ‘made it past the first stage’ which is reasonable enough, given that most people’s experience of a passport is to use it to get past a checkpoint.

But what Mr Berry meant, as he later clarified, was that Bacup hadn’t made the first cut, but would be eligible to start the process in the next round of bidding, and would also receive support from the government to improve his bid.

So there’s a bitter taste in parts of Bacup over how this has been handled, not helped by Mr Berry feeling the need to say that Bacup’s bid ‘didn’t even make the top 100.’

Hardly a helpful comment, and one which seems intended to lay blame at the council’s door.

For its part, the council says the bidding criteria was confusing, And it’s not as if Rossendale has council officers just sitting around waiting for the chance to bid for Government cash.

Many much larger councils, such as Portsmouth, have failed to make the cut too.

It’s a sorry sight to see our local MP criticising council officers yet again – and a bit of an own-goal too because it turns out Bacup’s bid wasn’t a product of the council, but of a partnership involving lots of people in Bacup too, also known as voters.

What we need to know, in plain English, is what will happen next, when it will happen and whether, at this stage, any funding at all is guaranteed from Government for Bacup.

And if Bacup’s bid really wasn’t in the top 100, then why is it getting special treatment – even if no-one is quite sure what sort of special treatment ‘passporting’ is.