Whittaker dismisses criticism of PM’s fund for towns

A YORKSHIRE Tory candidate has said our towns are in “dire need of help from government” as he dismissed claims a Town’s Fund, announced by Boris Johnson, would go little way to heal the wounds of austerity.

Craig Whittaker, the Conservative Party candidate for Calder Valley, made the comments yesterday during a visit from Robert Jenrick, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary, to Brighouse.

Mr Whittaker said he had been “lucky” as three of the constituency towns – Todmorden, Brighouse and Elland – were due to receive millions of pounds as part of the Government’s Town’s Fund.

And Mr Jenrick said: “We believe that too much money has been spent in London and on the great cities like Manchester and Leeds at the expense of towns where millions of people live which have very proud heritages and can have very bright futures but do need some investment.”

But the fund has come under fire from opposition parties, who have accused the Tories of targeting the money to key marginal seats, and that the amount given does not heal the wounds of austerity.

But Mr Whittaker branded this as “absolute nonsense” and said: “Austerity isn’t about infrastructure spend. What people are talking about, they have confused day-to-day spending in regards to services and what we are doing here which is about infrastructure.”

Mr Jenrick added: “We chose the towns against objective criteria we published some time ago which looked at deprivation, educational performance, social mobility, connectivity – both through road and rail – but also broadband and 21st Century infrastructure. That led us to the places that we invested in.”