Scotland Secretary Alister Jack encourages councils to have another go at levelling up bids for Kilmarnock and Ayr

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack has encouraged East and South Ayrshire Councils to have another shot at levelling up fundsSouth Ayrshire missed out on £20m funding for leisure and regeneration plans, including the refurbishment of the Citadel and other town centre works.And while East Ayrshire Council was successful with its bid for Kilmarnock's cultural quarter project, a second bid for improvements to the Bellfield Interchange was not.During a visit to the Palace Theatre to announce the funding, Mr Jack told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he actively encouraged both authorities to 'fine tune' their bids and return for the third round of the levelling up scheme.He said: "There is another round coming, so they should look at their bid and fine tune it."I would absolutely encourage them to do that as I would with any local authorities who missed out today."A number of those who were successful today, missed out in round one, so absolutely, come back again."Mr Jack spoke positively about the ambitious plans for Kilmarnock.He said: "It is a very exciting initiative, with £20m going in from the UK Government, with £10m in match funding."It is a great bid."South Ayrshire Council Leader Martin Dowey said the council would be looking at the reasons for the unsuccessful bid, but insisted that the council was still looking at regeneration without that resource.He said: “We are disappointed not to receive anything from the levelling up fund round two, and we await the reasons behind the decisions."In the meantime, we are set to announce some major regeneration and community focused projects following the setting of the Council budget in March.”East Ayrshire Council pointed out that a lot of work has been carried out on