Research and analysis

Torridge UKSPF evaluation: impact and value for money findings – executive summary

Updated 28 August 2026

Applies to England

Introduction

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) was launched by the UK Government in April 2022. It provided £2.6 billion funding for local investment by March 2025, with an additional £900 million available for 2025-26. Local decision-makers worked with their local communities and partners to deliver interventions under three investment priorities: Communities and Place, Supporting Local Businesses, and People and Skills. UKSPF empowered places to identify and build on their own local strengths and needs, with a focus on enhancing community pride and increasing life chances.

Torridge received a UKSPF allocation of £1 million to fund a range of projects and activities that fall within the Supporting Local Businesses and Communities and Place Investment Priorities. These activities were designed to complement other sources of funding such as a £15.6 million Levelling Up Fund (LUF) allocation and a £995,350 Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF) allocation.

Torridge, in the north west of Devon, is a coastal and rural district with the second-lowest population density of any local authority area in the South West. The district includes several deprived areas, five of which are in the highest quartile of overall deprivation in England (the Lower Super Output Areas of: Bideford North, Bideford East, Broadheath, Holsworthy, Northam). Historically, funding for business and community development in the South West has focused on population centres to the south of Devon, such as Plymouth, Exeter and Torbay.

Key impact evaluation findings

Communities and Place

Reduction in observed and fear of anti-social behaviour

An increased police presence out of the community hub in Jubilee Square near Bideford town centre and the installation of CCTV, funded by UKSPF, was expected to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB) near Jubilee Square and the town centre. In turn, this will lead to a reduction in the fear of crime and ASB among local residents. Jubilee Square was highlighted as a hotspot for crime and ASB. A quasi-experimental evaluation design analysed crime and ASB data in Bideford and Ilfracombe promenade (a comparator location). This indicated a large and statistically significant decrease in criminal activity and ASB following the UKSPF funded intervention in Bideford compared to the comparator location, providing strong evidence to support the hypothesis. However, these results may be skewed by ASB Hotspot Response Programme funding that Devon and Cornwall Police received from the Home Office over a similar time period.

Despite upgrades to anti-crime infrastructure and reductions in recorded crime and ASB, survey evidence collected as part of this evaluation suggests that the fear and perception of crime among residents in Bideford has not been reduced.

Perceptions of place

Torridge’s UKSPF programme funded a variety of activities aimed at improving Bideford town centre. Examples of this included a grant scheme to improve the physical appearance of shop fronts, a police community engagement hub in Jubilee Square, gable-end decoration, feasibility studies to improve the local Pannier market, funding to support local family-oriented events such as the Eat Bideford and Victorian Frost Fair Festivals and a project to fill vacant units in the town centre.

Stakeholders involved in the delivery of improvements of Bideford town centre noted that certain projects were likely to have a positive impact on the perceptions of the town centre. This was expected to be achieved by catalysing future developments that will enhance perceptions of the town centre beyond the timeframe of UKSPF. Evidence from street surveys with businesses and residents partially support the claim that town centre perception has improved, however limited sample size and insufficient evidence to determine whether this can be attributed to UKSPF interventions.

Increased footfall

Improvements to the town centre, were intended to attract more residents and visitors, increasing overall footfall into the town centre. Footfall data does partially show an increase in footfall. However, there are several contextual factors which may have influenced these data, including weather and the placement of footfall counters across Bideford.

Supporting Local Businesses

Business growth

Supported businesses received bespoke one-to-one support from a business advisor and grant funding of up to £1,500 to develop their business. Improved productivity was expected to emerge primarily as a result of new technologies being purchased through grant funding. Although some respondents to a business survey indicated an expected improvement in productivity, this was not widespread among businesses. Qualitative responses indicated that grants were used to buy equipment or digitise (purchasing digital technology such as web development and e-commerce capabilities).

Job creation

Support from the UKSPF funded projects was expected to, in the longer-term, enable businesses to create jobs. Survey data and monitoring information shows that a small proportion of supported businesses have been able to create jobs that were partially attributable either to the support or grant, indicating that the UKSPF funding has been successful in supporting job creation, however the scale of the impact is relatively small.

Increased landowner engagement

Delivered by the North Devon Biosphere, the Natural Capital Marketplace project aimed to establish a service to support local landowners in accessing new revenue streams from managing their land, with a particular focus on biodiversity net gain (BNG). The intended outcome of this project was that landowners would access these land management schemes. Monitoring information shows that although businesses were supported, none were able to access non-grant financial support through these land management schemes. Stakeholder evidence suggests that a programme of this scale was not sufficient to support landowners to increase their engagement in sustainable land management schemes.

Key economic evaluation findings

The UKSPF programme in Torridge demonstrated adequate value for money across the 4Es framework.

• Economy - Adequate: As an overall programme, staff at TDC were broadly effective in making use of pre-existing networks and structures to identify delivery organisations and internal staff that would be best placed to deliver their programme. Programme monitoring information shows that spend targets were met with no evidence of overspend or significant spend redistribution between or within projects.

• Efficiency - High: There is evidence to suggest that delivery and management staff have undertaken specific actions to improve the overall efficiency of the programme including coordinating the UKSPF with other funds. Programme monitoring information also shows a strong overall performance, meeting or surpassing many output targets.

• Effectiveness - Low: Overall mixed outcome achievement for the programme means there is inadequate evidence to determine that the programme has been delivered in an effective manner. This is, in part, due to a lack of adequate monitoring.

• Equity - Adequate: Evidence shows a deliberate effort made by programme staff to design a programme based on evidence of need. However, some qualitative evidence suggests that certain groups may not have benefitted to the extent the programme or delivery partners had initially intended.

Key learning

The following key learning and lessons have been identified, which will support design and delivery of future local growth funds:

• Extensive collaboration with local delivery organisations prior to the launch of the UKSPF put TDC in a strong position to develop a programme that could address local needs. Given the scale of Torridge as a district and their UKSPF programme, relying on local delivery bodies through the North Devon Economy, Skills and Innovation Board was a more rapid and efficient approach than undertaking an open call for projects.

• Future programmes should seek to replicate Torridge’s approach to the UKSPF in terms of developing interventions that complemented other funding streams.

• Longer timescales for the programme would have placed less immediate pressure on TDC and project leads, potentially enabling better monitoring structures and a greater number of outputs and outcomes to be achieved.

• Providing a hub for local police to increase their presence has led to a reduction in crime and ASB in the target area. However, this alone has not necessarily been sufficient to reduce peoples’ fear and perceptions of crime; additional measures may be needed to achieve this.

• More effective and longer-term evidence collection tools (e.g. additional footfall counters) are needed to collect baseline data and provide consistent monitoring over the course of a programme to sufficiently evaluate its impact.

• Flexible and tailored individual support for small businesses was valued by local businesses and early signs suggest some positive impacts. However, the scale of economic impacts on the context of the district was very modest, with fewer than five jobs created.

• Greater capacity is required to deliver a project supporting landowners to engage in sustainable land management schemes. Stakeholders noted that planning and legal capacity would have been required to effectively support landowners.

• Energy price inflation was a strong motivation for offering support to help decarbonise businesses, supporting businesses to plan more energy efficient behaviour and purchase more energy efficient equipment appears to have been effective in reducing emissions on a small scale.

• Future programmes from the outset should ensure adequate monitoring processes are in place before and during programme delivery to effectively demonstrate achieved outcomes and potential impacts.