Purpose

The Rural England Prosperity
Fund is a rural top up to UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF)
providing allocations for eligible local authorities in England to
help address the additional needs and challenges facing rural
areas.
 
The Council is lead authority
for the Cheshire East UKSPF transition year allocation and has been
granted an amount of £248,242 REPF funding which is
available for capital projects from
April 2025 to March 2026.
 
The Executive
Director Place has delegated authority to accept and approve successful grant application and the
supplementary estimate to incur spending up to and including
£250,000.

Content

Accept the Rural England
Prosperity Fund (REPF) allocation for Cheshire East Council and
approve a Supplementary Capital Estimate of up to
£248,242.
 
Delegate decisions to the
Director of Growth and Enterprise to manage the Cheshire East REPF
2025-26 programme, taking all necessary actions in the interests of
maximising the impacts of the fund aligned to the fund parameters
and local priorities and aligned to the core UK Shared Prosperity
Fund Investment Plan.
 
Approve the allocation of
funding for the transition year 2025/26 to meet the REPF investment
priorities of ‘support for business’, thriving
places’ and ‘healthy, safe and inclusive
communities’ and the priorities 
of the Cheshire East Rural Action Plan 2022-2026 aligned to the
following REPF interventions: small scale investment in micro and
small enterprises in  rural areas; the
development and promotion of the visitor economy; investment in
capacity building and infrastructure support for local civil
society and community groups; investment and support for digital
infrastructure for local community facilities.
 
These interventions are
detailed in the skeleton programme attached in Appendix A attached,
which will be used as the basis of the forecast delivery tranche
for the transition year 2025/26.
 
Authorise the Head
of Rural and Cultural Economy to agree and launch the grant scheme,
noting that decisions to award individual grant applications will
be made by the Visitor Economy, People and Communities and Economic
Development teams aligned to the grant allocations set out in
Appendix A and approval levels set out in Chapter 3 – Part 4:
Section 4 of the Constitution, and that the launch will be
publicised on the UKSPF web page of the Council’s website,
notified to all UKSPF Local Partnership Group Members and Cheshire
East members of the sub-regional Rural Strategy Group.