Wycombe’s Labour MP has asked why Buckinghamshire Council has ‘given’ Primark and Tesco taxpayers’ cash.

Emma Reynolds asked the local authority for greater clarity about how it was spending the £11.8 million it received from the government to improve High Wycombe’s town centre.

The council began receiving the pot of money in the summer of 2021, following a successful bid to the Future High Streets Fund (FHS) and it has since ‘matched’ the government cash with a further £3m of its own funding.

The authority previously said that it must fully spend the FHS money by March 2025 and that any unspent funds will have to be returned to the government.

Guidance for the fund states that councils must use the money to ‘renew and reshape town centres’ and must not use it for projects that ‘only make a difference to the appearance, rather than the use, of the area’.

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The council has spent some of the FHS cash on the relocation of High Wycombe’s Primark store from its current home in the Chilterns Shopping Centre into the Eden Shopping Centre and has also used the funding to pay for part of the relocation of the Bucks county archives from Aylesbury to the upper floors of High Wycombe’s Tesco superstore.

The use of FHS cash for these and other projects was confirmed by Bucks Council leader Martin Tett in a letter to Reynolds on July 26, which was seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Wycombe’s MP then replied to him on August 1 asking: “Can you clarify please how much taxpayer money has been given to Primark and Tesco for the purposes outlined in your letter?”

Reynolds also asked: “How much taxpayer money is being spent on re-allocating the archives? How does this align with the stated purpose of the Future High Streets Fund to renew and reshape town centres and high streets to drive growth?”

To be eligible for the FHS funding, local authorities must plan to invest in physical infrastructure, acquire and assemble land to improve the public realm, improve transport access, support the change of use of sites, including for housing or adapt high streets for new technology.

In his letter, Cllr Tett claimed the council’s use of the FHS funding was in the spirit of the scheme and that spending the cash on helping Primark relocate had helped ‘unlock’ the Chilterns Centre for redevelopment by Dandara, a company which has asked the council for planning permission to build 300 flats on the site of the ailing shopping mall.

The other large project Reynolds wanted answers over was the repurposing of floors of the High Wycombe Tesco building, which the supermarket giant leases from the council.

Proposals to house the county archives above Tesco are currently being considered by planning officers as the council races to move Buckinghamshire’s treasure trove of historical records from its Walton Street offices in Aylesbury, which it intends to sell.

The strongrooms housing the archives are ‘at full capacity and do not meet current standards’, according to the council, which has been warned by the National Archives that it may lose its provisional archiving licence unless it makes ‘concrete progress’ to secure more space for the archives by November 2024.

A council report earlier this year warned that if the storage situation was not resolved, Buckinghamshire could become the first archive service in the country to lose its accreditation, resulting in ‘reputational impact, loss of revenue and the withdrawal of collections of international importance’.

In his letter last week, Cllr Tett claimed that the relocation of the archives to High Wycombe and the creation of new council offices as part of the same plan would both ‘attract footfall’ to the town.

He wrote: “The Future High Streets Fund has been used for a range of interventions in High Wycombe which will all bring benefits to help keep the town centre attractive and vibrant for residents and visitors and increase footfall.”

Bucks Council has been approached for comment.

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