Levenshulme District Centre Partnership Town Team in South Manchester has just found out that it has secured £10,000 worth of funding from the government. The money and support package has come from Mark Prisk MP – the Minister for Housing in the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The town team was asked to apply for the funding after they narrowly missed out on the Portas Pilot bid. They were able to win the funding through the support of their local MP – the Rt Hon Sir Gerald Kaufman.

Sir Gerald will be officially announcing the news at the launch of the area’s annual Levenshulme Festival on Friday 26 October at 6pm in M19 Bar and venue.

Councillor Sue Murphy, deputy leader of Manchester City Council, said: "The award of Town Team Partner funding is very welcome news for Levenshulme. It will allow us to make further progress with initiatives for the area which have been developed in partnership with traders and the local community."

Housing Minister – Mark Prisk MP said “The support package aims to promote shared learning and best practice with the help of retail experts and other town teams from across the country. In addition each Town Team Partner will be receiving £10,000 to help towards putting some of their plans into action.”

Chair of the Levenshulme Traders Association and local Levenshulme Businessman Lawrence Hennigan said “Our local Town Team has worked hard to put forward credible schemes to improve business in Levenshulme and the funding will allow us to make some of our dreams a reality.”

Long-time local Levenshulme resident John Commons commented on hearing the announcement; “ Though I was originally disappointed that Levenshulme did not succeed in the Portas bid process to get £100k for our High Street scheme. I am delighted to hear the news this week of the success of our Levenshulme Town Team in obtaining the £10k award as part of being recognised by the government as a national Town Team Partner with support from our local MP Sir Gerald Kaufman” .