Row over Levelling Up cash escalates as MP rejects councillor's accusation of 'inaccurate claims'

A row over ‘levelling up’ funds has escalated after Heywood and Middleton MP Chris Clarkson was accused of making ‘inaccurate claims’ about the number of times Rochdale council had contacted him about its regeneration plans.

Last week Councillor John Blundell, the council’s economy chief, claimed Mr Clarkson had potentially cost his constituency £20m in government cash as he had stopped engaging with local authority bosses. This was rejected by Mr Clarkson - Heywood and Middleton ’s first Tory MP - who said it was ‘almost entirely inaccurate’ and reflected a ‘political agenda’ on behalf of the Labour councillor.

He also dismissed the £20m figure as having ‘no basis in fact’.

READ MORE : MP hits out at council chief after accusation he potentially cost constituency £20m in Levelling Up cash

But in a further letter to Mr Clarkson - seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service - Labour’s Coun Blundell presents a timeline of a deteriorating relationship between the Parliamentarian and the council, between early 2020 and the present day. He identifies a ‘falling out’ over inadequate government food parcels at the beginning of the pandemic as the start of the malaise.

Coun Blundell goes on to stress that the list was collated by 'independent’ senior council officers. However, Mr Clarkson has described the catalogue of events as a ‘selective snap-shot of some of my dealings with the council’, presented without context ‘in order to support a particular narrative’.

In his letter Coun Blundell says he is not attempting to ‘antagonise’ Mr Clarkson but to ‘bring him to the table’

“We must remember that you operating alone has not borne fruit for Heywood and Middleton as it must be only one of few Tory marginals not to receive