UK Government decides not to renew funding for the Western Gateway

The UK Government has issued a decision to cease funding any pan-regional partnerships which have an English Mayoral Combined Authority within their geography including the Western Gateway from 31 March 2025.

Started as a collaboration between the cities of Bristol, Cardiff and Newport in 2016, the Western Gateway became a Government supported Pan-Regional Partnership in 2019.  Whilst all of the 28 local authorities that make up the partnership are committed to continuing cross border collaboration, especially to continue work on tidal energy in the Severn Estuary, without Government funding the secretariat team in its current form will cease to function from 6 June 2025.

More than 100 business and academics responded to the UK Government Consultation on this decision to support continued funding for the Western Gateway Partnership specifically just before Christmas.

The decision was made by Minister Jim McMahon on the 13^th March 2024.  In his letter to the partnership, he made it clear that this decision was based on the role that Mayoral Combined Authority Mayors would now play in bringing together pan-regional areas.  This, despite the fact that Mayoral Combined Authorities do not exist in Wales and therefore cross-border economies like the Western Gateway would not be supported by this new model.

Representatives from the Western Gateway, the area’s business community and parliamentarians have attempted to engage the UK Government and the minister on this point at numerous occasions since the announcement in the budget but have been denied a meeting.

This will be an end of an era for the partnership which has played a prominent role in ensuring South Wales and Western England becomes the fastest-growing economic area outside of London in just under five years.

In its fifth year of existence as a Pan-Regional Partnership, the Western Gateway managed to bring in over £2million of in-kind and financial support for its work from local and national organisations. With this, the partnership has launched the Severn Estuary Commission to look at harnessing the UK’s largest tidal range, attracted over £100m to ensure the area can develop the UK’s first Small Modular Reactors and hosted three national conferences attracting over 1,500 business leaders and Government Ministers to the area.

Despite this success, UK Government funding was essential to underwrite the everyday costs for the partnership team.

On top of continuing work to deliver the potential of tidal energy in the Severen Estuary, the partnership has committed to providing a platform for the 28 local authorities in the area to take part in the UK’s largest investment conference at UKREiiF 2025 on 20^th-22^nd May.  This will be a key opportunity for all the local authorities to come together to drive investment into the area and discuss a future for the cross border collaboration between the key economic forces of South Wales and Western England.

Chair of the Western Gateway Partnership Sarah Williams-Gardener said: “This is a hugely disappointing decision from the UK Government.  Despite representation from Welsh Government calling for talks on how both governments can work together on this, requests to meet from business and locally elected leaders and MPs, they have refused to engage with any of us from our area on this decision.

“It’s been a great journey we’ve been on having delivered hundreds of millions of pounds of investment into key sites across the area; putting together a credible, locally supported cross border economic plan for growth which recognises our natural economic geography; and bringing together leaders from across the political spectrum to deliver for the 4.8million people who live here.

“Whilst the UK Government have decided to put the brakes on this massive economic opportunity, I and our board of local authority leaders are committed to ensuring we can still deliver on our area’s potential. The evidence our partnership has uncovered shows that our area can become the fastest growing economy outside of London and we will do what we can to achieve this, with or without the Government’s help.”