Macclesfield was deemed to not have enough deprivation to receive central funding from Westminster, in October's levelling up funds.

That is according to Cheshire East Councillors, who now fear places like the Macclesfield constituency town of Poynton also wouldn't qualify for central government investment from his criteria.

Crewe got £23 million of the north west's allocated £232 million pounds from Boris Johnson's government at the end of October. This will mostly be invested into Crewe's rail links. Macc missed out.

Now there are fresh fears that Knutsford, Wilmslow and Poynton are never likely to receive government funding to revitalise their town centres if Macclesfield isn't considered deprived enough to get a cash injection, a Wilmslow councillor said.

Cllr Mark Goldsmith (Wilmslow West and Chorley, Ind) was speaking during an update on town centre regeneration programmes after councillors were told that Macclesfield had failed to secure government funding and one of the key factors can be levels of deprivation.

Peter Skates, director of growth and enterprise, had told the economic and growth committee: "Although Macclesfield was unsuccessful for levelling up funding we are continuing to prepare for the next round of applications anticipated in the new year."

He said Crewe had been successful for two tranches of funding – from the Future High Streets Fund and Towns Fund – with a total allocation of £37m.

The committee heard that town centre vitality plans are being done for the borough's nine key service centres of Alsager, Congleton, Handforth, Knutsford, Middlewich, Nantwich, Poynton, Sandbach and Wilmslow.

Mr Skates said the plans were about working with town councils to work out the most appropriate priority actions for each individual town.

"Plans are due to be produced by the end of the year and it is planned that these will be subject to a public consultation in early 2022," he said.

Cllr Goldsmith said: "We know, from Crewe and Macclesfield, that attracting government money really is dependent on levels of deprivation and we know Macclesfield wasn't successful because it didn't have enough deprivation.

"But what we do know is we've also got nine other key service towns going through the same sort of vitality town process and, if Macclesfield is struggling for deprivation, then Knutsford and Wilmslow and Poynton and going to miss it by a country mile so we need alternative sources to fund what they're doing.

"Therefore I think the private sector will be more heavily involved in that."

Mr Skates said the private sector has an important role to play.

"There is a lot of private sector investment interested in Congleton now and how do we build on that momentum?" he said.

"So every town will be different and that's what I hope the town centre vitality plans will demonstrate."

Macclesfield: Would you class our town as deprived?

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