NOT a single penny of funding will be coming our way from the UK Conservative government’s Levelling Up fund, it was announced last week.

The fund, which is meant to replace European money following Brexit, was sold initially as a ‘plan to reduce the differences between richer and poorer parts of Great Britain’.

However, the latest string of investments announced by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, appears to be benefiting affluent areas of the country, including Rishi’s own wealthy constituency of Richmond.

He said in response that he was not embarrassed by this and famously told a group of Conservatives in Tunbridge Wells during his failed leadership bid last summer that he was prepared to take money out of ‘deprived urban areas’.

West Wales has long been considered one of the poorest parts of Europe and now the United Kingdom.

Add to that the constant pressure of ‘brain drain’ where young professionals can’t find a decent occupation at home and have little to no hope of affording a house here.

What hope is there for the future of communities in Ceredigion and Gwynedd?

Voters in both counties chose to remain within the EU back in 2016, but instead we are left waiting cup in hand for the UK Government to choose us.

Reacting to the snub, Ceredigion MP Ben Lake said: “The idea that we should now be grateful for the privilege of competing over a small pot of money is frankly insulting.”

He added: “Many promises were made during the Brexit debate, but the Conservatives’ claim that Wales would receive ‘not a penny less’ may have been the most brazen.”

Liberal Democrat leader in Wales, Jane Dodds has also blasted the ‘pot luck’ nature of the funding as there appears to be no methodology behind which projects get the green light and which don’t.

Figures show that Wales is around £1.1 billion down in comparison with EU funded schemes.

We desperately need investment and did not vote to lose European funding.

The reality is that this ‘levelling up’ exercise has merely provided Tories with the opportunity to support and strengthen Tory constituencies. It’s political hogwash.