“All the government’s talk about levelling up is meaningless if it doesn’t include Knottingley", says MP Yvette Cooper

But Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford MP Yvette Cooper has blasted the government’s failure to include Knottingley in town regeneration funds and is demanding action via the Levelling Up Fund process.

Ms Cooper said: “All the government’s talk about levelling up is meaningless if it doesn’t include Knottingley.

"We’ve had more than a decade of government austerity and Knottingley has been heavily hit with too many important local services being cut.

"Yet it is a great town with beautiful waterways and strong communities and we really need new investment.

"Knottingley was unfairly excluded from the government’s Towns Fund, that’s why I asked Wakefield Council to put in a Levelling Up Fund Bid for Knottingley and I’m calling on government ministers to support it and give us the investment we deserve.”

The Towns Fund in 2020, which pre-dated levelling up, and which has resulted in £24 million investment for Castleford, has been roundly criticised after it ignored many towns with high levels of deprivation and in high need of investment in favour of more affluent areas.