Years after the Conservative government pledged to revitalize neglected towns and drive regional equality, a significant majority of the associated infrastructure projects remain incomplete. New figures, obtained through freedom of information requests and analysed by researchers, show that 821 out of 1,347 levelling up projects were still pending as of May 2026. Data indicates that 73 local council areas, which successfully secured funding bids, have not yet seen a single project brought to full completion. While recent tracking has identified 59 projects finished since the initial data collection, the overall progress highlights a stark gap between political ambition and local reality. Data released under freedom of information laws and manually reviewed by found 821 levelling up projects out of 1,347 were yet to be finalised as of May this year. Across the UK, 73 council areas that had a bid for a project accepted were yet to see a single one fully completed. But it is possible some completed projects may be missing from the data, has attempted to correct for this using published online announcements.
The levelling up agenda, championed by Michael Gove under the administration of Boris Johnson, was designed to spread economic opportunity across the UK. Boris Johnson’s government swept to power in 2019 after promising to revive left-behind towns and spread opportunity as part of a levelling up agenda headed by Michael Gove.
The analysis encompasses three major funding streams: the 2018 Future High Streets Fund, the 2019 Town Deals, and the 2021 Levelling Up Fund.
By May, approximately 57% of these initiatives remained unfinished.
These figures exclude 69 projects that were ultimately cancelled or merged into other schemes. Regionally, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have experienced slower delivery despite managing fewer total projects, while Yorkshire and the north-west of England faced challenges despite being granted the largest number of initiatives. But they were also the two regions allocated the most projects to begin with, north-west England and Yorkshire also had low project completion rates.
Significant delays have been attributed to inflationary pressures, which forced many councils to scale back or pause developments as construction and labor costs rose. In Blackburn with Darwen, for instance, none of the eight projects funded through the Local Regeneration Fund have reached completion. Similarly, Leeds currently has eight ongoing projects, including a heritage programme, transport gateway improvements, and several local community centers, all of which remain open. The establishment of a learning and skills centre, the station gateway transport scheme, a project to make the area greener and better connected, and the Heritage Investment Programme (which has only partly been completed), five are in Morley: a refurbishment of Morley town hall.
Experts suggest the structure of these funding pots contributed to these setbacks. Zoë Billingham, director of the thinktank IPPR North, argued that the system encouraged a “begging bowl culture” requiring councils to lobby central government officials for grants. Former Bank of England economist Andy Haldane, while acknowledging the funding was “better than nothing,” criticized the process as highly centralized and prone to what he described as “unsightly and pork barrelly” political maneuvering.
The landscape of regional funding is now shifting under the current government. The Future High Streets Fund had an original completion target of March 2024, while the Levelling Up Fund and Town Deals were initially slated for March 2026. These have since been consolidated into the Local Regeneration Fund, with a new deadline of March 2028. Additionally, Labour has introduced the £5.8bn “Pride in Place” program, which aims to provide longer-term certainty by allowing local boards to dictate spending rather than forcing councils to compete for individual grants.
Jack Shaw, director of Groundwork Research, noted that while the new program represents a positive shift by offering communities £2m annually over a decade, future policy must focus on accelerating the speed of investment. He emphasized that for funding to have a measurable impact within the current parliament, government efforts must translate more rapidly into tangible social infrastructure and public realm improvements. “The Pride in Place programme is a step forward because it provides communities with £2m a year over 10 years, giving places the certainty and time to deliver visible, lasting improvements. There looked to be degrees of pork barrel politics rolled into which places got it.
Concerns remain that the new funding model may inherit some of the old difficulties. Sarah Longlands, chief executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, pointed out that capital projects are inherently time-consuming and cautioned against expecting rapid turnarounds on complex developments. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government defended the current strategy, stating they are committed to fostering growth in every postcode and providing local leaders with the stability required to regenerate their communities effectively. He said: “It was in some ways the kind of worst of Whitehall. Capital money takes time – you just can’t throw stuff up. And it can’t be done quickly sometimes.”, we’re dealing with a lot of capital money.
