Lincoln Towns Fund Unlocking Incredible Opportunities for the City

Lincoln has been awarded £19 million to support its Town Deal Programme, which seeks to initiate a range of projects that will support regeneration and development in the city.

In total, the programme consists of 12 projects which will be carried out over the next few years.

Kate Ellis, Strategic Director at City of Lincoln Council said: “The Town Deal award represents a major opportunity to support the recovery and future sustainable growth of our city and drive our ‘‘levelling up’ ambitions for skills, wages, deprivation and wellbeing to match other university cities across the region and nationally. Lincoln has one of the lowest wage levels of any university city, and is one of the ten districts with the lowest salaries in the country.”

“We are now excited to work with partners to bring forward these schemes which will help to deliver our City Centre Masterplan and future priorities, building on previous successful initiatives.

“The range of schemes included in the programme will support investment in our heritage as well as digital technologies, skills and sustainable transport.”

The city council is pleased to announce that the first round of funds has been approved to help support some of these schemes. These include the following:

• Lincoln City Football Club Community Hub

Lincoln City Football Club, through Lincoln City Foundation will use Towns Funding to deliver a transformational project which will provide a community centre for learning and improving people’s physical, mental, and social wellbeing in one of the most deprived areas of the city.

The project will create new education and skills training facilities for the Lincoln City Foundation and rejuvenate an existing outdoor community facility to support the delivery of health, wellbeing, and activity programmes. This project responds to the need for investment in skills infrastructure to improve learning and employment outcomes and contributes towards the city’s wider objective for an inclusive growth programme.

The Lincoln City Football Club Community Hub project also links with the wider transport proposals for the Sincil Bank area and the collective impact of these interventions will deliver positive change within this community, supporting longer-term investment and higher land values to enable sustainable growth.

• Lincoln Central Market

This project will restore and repurpose the Grade II listed Central Market Building within Lincoln City Centre to create a modern and diversified market offer, combining retail, food, leisure and technology. The scheme will create an ‘anchor destination’ within the Cornhill Quarter, which is emerging as a prime leisure and retail area, directly served by the city’s multi-modal Transport Hub.

The scheme responds to the need, identified by the private sector and community to invest in the market building to stem decline, restore vitality and diversify the offer to build a sustainable trading venue. It will also support the recovery of the High Street through the creation of an enhanced attraction and anchor destination in this part of the city.

Furthermore, the project will complement the ongoing investment in the Cornhill area of the city, which has seen it become a key retail and leisure destination in Lincoln.

• Lincoln Drill Hall

This scheme will see the provision of a renewed venue that will provide a wide range of services, drive a sustainable economic future for this iconic space and strengthen this local cultural asset.

Located on the edge of one of the most economically deprived wards in Lincolnshire, the Drill Hall will offer a leisure venue for local community groups to meet, adult training provision that will provide both routeways to employment and Continuous Professional Development for local priority sectors.

In addition, it will offer a mental health drop-in service that will be based in the community cafe providing a safe, relaxed and informal space to meet with health professionals and discuss concerns, linking with the Health and Wellbeing Centre proposals. In the evenings the centre will focus on making the arts more visible and easier to access by delivering a range of performances to support a holistic cultural offer within Lincoln, working in collaboration with other arts venues.

• Tentercroft Street (Feasibility)

The Towns Fund will support further feasibility work looking at the potential of the project to create future regeneration opportunities in this part of Lincoln. This project will support the redevelopment of a strategic brownfield site which we hope will include a mix of uses, including the creation of new workspace and city living in the heart of the city centre.

The scheme will address the unfulfilled demand for start-up and move-on space as part of a portfolio of new workspace to serve different business needs across the city. The project responds to the need for a workspace and city living provision with a sustainable setting.

This is alongside a new city living offer which will provide sustainable accommodation in an accessible location adjacent to the main transport hub, the regenerated Cornhill Quarter and in close proximity to the University of Lincoln. Towns Funding will support feasibility and design to enable this scheme to proceed.

For more information on these projects, and the wider Lincoln Town Investment Plan, please visit: About the Lincoln Town Deal Board – City of Lincoln Council

The projects and the lead partner organisations are as follows:

• Hospitality, Events and Tourism (HEAT) Institute – Lincoln College
• Greyfriars – Heritage Lincolnshire
• Drill Hall Development – Lincoln College
• The Barbican – University of Lincoln
• Lincoln Connect – Visit Lincoln and Lincoln Big
• Sincil Bank – Lincolnshire County Council Highways
• Wigford Way – Lincolnshire County Council Highways
• Store of Stories – Acts Trust
• LCFC Education Hub – Lincoln City football Club and Lincoln City Foundation
• Lincoln Made Smarter – University of Lincoln
• Central Market – City of Lincoln Disrict Council
• Tentercroft Street City of Lincoln District Council

The Programme is being managed by the City of Lincoln Council. For more information please contact Gill Wilson, Growth Strategy and Funding Manager: gill.wilson@lincoln.gov.uk