Pickles under fire over NHB cut

摘要

Communities secretary Eric Pickles has sought to allay concerns raised by district councils over proposals to siphon ￡400m of New Homes Bonus (NHB) cash into the single local growth fund from 2015/16. Addressing the District Councils' Network's (DCNs) assembly at last week's Local Government Association conference in Manchester, Mr Pickles faced a barrage of questions from leaders of second-tier authorities angered at the Spending Review decision to reallocate the funding - which is set to make up one-fifth of the ￡2bn single pot from which England's 39 Local Enterprise Partnerships will bid for from 2015.