LGE Roundtable Discussion: Project Finance – Public/private partnerships, alternative funding, and getting our projects started post Spending Review

Local Government East has been running a series of roundtable discussions over the last few years, and this programme continues into 2025/26. These sessions are open to all councils in the East of England and their partner organisations. At the LGE roundtable, you will hear from a guest speaker on each theme and have an opportunity to learn from, and share your own examples of, best practice, opportunities, and challenges.

While the Government’s commitment to funding stability is incredibly welcome, there are still a great number of projects that weren’t covered in the Infrastructure Pipeline that would be of great benefit to the region – Ely and Haughley junctions, the A12 cancellation and the A47 cancellation, for example.

In addition, with global challenges rocking markets and demand pressures increasing at home, it can be difficult to find the resources to start new projects and invest in key services. This is becoming more important given the pressing need for services to transform to keep costs down, often requiring short-term investment to achieve.

In response to both of these facts, LGE has noticed an uptick of interest in alternative funding methods, be it through public/private partnership, cross departmental funding, and a range of other methods for raising money for capital and project expenditure.

In this roundtable, we want to bring together local stakeholders to discuss how your organisation has found the resources needed to bring about change within your local area. We can talk about the different methods of finance available, whether you have been able to successfully leverage public/private partnerships, and how you have been able to balance the costs and benefits of such approaches.

Agenda and speakers to follow shortly.

Who should attend: Local councillors and officers, particularly those in strategy, growth, policy and asset management.

Please note: if this session is oversubscribed places will be limited to 2 – 3 people per authority.

If you have any queries please contact Matthew Stewart, Policy and Programmes Manager, Local Government East, email; matt.stewart@localgoveasteng.gov.uk