Dame Caroline Dinenage, Member of Parliament for Gosport, has welcomed the announcement that Rowner will receive up to £20 million from the Government’s new Pride in Place Fund. She has stressed that the funding must be directed towards community priorities, not council vanity projects.
Caroline said:
“This is a welcome injection of funding for Rowner and a chance to finally tackle some of the local issues that people raise with me day in day out. Places like the Griffin Walk play park are in a terrible condition, unsafe, run down and desperately needing attention. That’s exactly the sort of investment local families want to see.”
Caroline warned that the Liberal Democrat run Gosport Borough Council has a track record of diverting funding away from genuine community needs. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money have been channelled into vanity projects like the Criterion Theatre which has remained empty and deteriorating since the Council purchased it three years ago.
She added:
“We cannot allow the same thing to happen again. Local people should not see money wasted while parks, play areas and community facilities continue to crumble. I have asked Ministers to give clear assurances that this fund cannot be hijacked for pet projects and that it won’t be lost in the fog of local government reform. Every penny must go where it is genuinely needed and deliver lasting benefits for Rowner residents.”
Caroline also highlighted concerns about the way Gosport’s Liberal Democrat led Council makes its funding decisions. She has warned that given their record of holding key discussions in private, excluding the press and public from meetings, residents will rightly fear that decisions on how the Pride in Place funding is spent could also be pushed through without proper scrutiny or transparency. There is a real risk of money being diverted into vanity projects like the Criterion instead of tackling real community priorities.
The Pride in Place Programme was announced on 25th September 2025, building on the earlier Plan for Neighbourhoods announced in March 2025. It will see up to £5 billion invested over the next decade in 250 deprived areas, with each neighbourhood, such as Rowner, eligible for up to £20 million. The Government says the fund will "embed flexibility, long-termism and bringing local people into the decisions that shape their neighbourhood". Caroline will continue to press for safeguards to make sure Rowner sees the full benefit of this funding.
ENDS
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