Minister for Levelling Up Jacob Young and Rutland MP Alicia Kearns during a visit to Rutland County Museum on Monday, February 26
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00:00 So I'm here this afternoon with the Minister for Leveling Up, Jacob Young MP, nice to see you.
00:07 And of course our local MP, Rutland and Melton MP, Alyssa Kearns.
00:11 And we're here to talk about the Leveling Up money which was awarded just on a year ago.
00:17 £23 million pounds awarded to Rutland.
00:20 So Minister, why are you here today? What are we actually looking at with respect to this money?
00:25 Well it's been fantastic to visit and thank you Alyssa for inviting me along.
00:29 And to see some of the investment that the Leveling Up fund is making in communities in Rutland and Melton.
00:35 Obviously part of that is the museum where we're here today.
00:38 We're getting £2 million pounds invested on this museum to embrace things like the amazing Roman mosaic discovery
00:47 that was made only a couple of years ago.
00:50 But also to hear about how Rutland and Melton councils are really embracing the cultural opportunities
00:58 that both of the areas are afforded.
01:01 And so it's been fantastic to visit today and I'm really grateful to Alyssa for inviting me along.
01:06 Now obviously the money is triggering its way through to the people that it's going to end up with.
01:12 How long do you think it will be before we actually start seeing some of the effects on the ground?
01:17 So hopefully a lot of that will be happening now.
01:19 So for example planning for the stockyard in Melton, that goes to planning a few months from now.
01:24 We've put out, as you saw, the local government put out a tender for people to apply for the Meditech hub.
01:30 So now the councils are looking at who applied, who wants to be part of this amazing new innovative hub that we are building.
01:35 So I think you are starting to see real progress.
01:38 We even have, I believe, the first bus of the buses that we've bought to build our new rural bus network.
01:43 So you really are starting to see progress and people start to feel that really during this year.
01:47 Now of course everybody when I talk to them wants to know when can they see the dragon.
01:50 Yeah.
01:51 When can we see the dragon?
01:52 Wouldn't we all love to see the dragon?
01:54 So the dragon has got to be preserved as everyone knows.
01:56 It's such an amazing thing.
01:57 It's actually a national now preservation situation that's going on.
02:01 So essentially they'll be working on that.
02:03 We will then hopefully get the digital display here.
02:05 And the great thing about the digital display is as we do more and more with Tourism Rutland,
02:09 and there are a lot of plans in the works,
02:10 you will see that we can move it around the county depending on where we want to drive tourism.
02:14 So there's a lot more coming on that.
02:16 Well Minister, thank you for turning up today.
02:18 And thank you for coming to see the people of Rutland and see what we're doing with this money.
02:22 And Alicia, thank you for making the effort to get the money here in the first place.
02:26 If I can just add, it's also fantastic to be here today because today we've announced local transport funding
02:33 for both Rutland and Melton.
02:35 £49 million coming in.
02:37 Which is pretty much the same as the annual budget for the whole council.
02:40 Yeah, but it's going to be over the next seven years where local people will be able to invest in their local transport priorities.
02:47 And I know that one of Alicia's big points that you've been campaigning on is improvements on the A1,
02:52 safety improvements on the A1, that's really important to see.
02:55 But also that we could see further investments in the bus network,
02:59 ensuring that some of our rural communities are properly connected.
03:02 Absolutely. New cycling networks, new buses, A1 improvements.
03:05 And this is on top of the pothole money that we only had a few weeks ago.
03:08 So in terms of transport opportunities, I mean, Rutland has the most amazing opportunity now,
03:13 thanks to government, to build the future.
03:14 And it is so bright, we just need to use that money in the right way.
03:18 I'm sure we will. Thank you very much indeed for your time.
03:20 Thank you.