Cornwall has gone from receiving £100m support to ‘effectively zero’ from EU
Due to its economic status, Cornwall received Objective One funding from the EU between 2000 to 2006
Last updated 28th Jan 2026
Cornwall has gone from receiving around £100m of funding a year from the European Union over five years ago to “effectively zero” this year now that the Government’s post-Brexit replacement Shared Prosperity Fund comes to an end in March.
Cornwall Council’s cabinet member for economic regeneration and funding has said that “at best” the Duchy will now receive around £10m a year if the new Kernow Industrial Growth Fund is considered part of the Government’s structural funding aid for Cornwall, though that will only target specific sectors and is for a limited period.
Cornwall is one of the poorest regions in the UK and Northern Europe, often ranking as the second poorest after West Wales, due to low wages, reliance on seasonal work, a high cost of living, a housing crisis and a struggling local economy outside of tourism.
Due to its economic status, Cornwall received Objective One funding from the EU to the tune of around £100m a year from 2000 to 2006.
Cornwall continued to receive the same high level of EU funding under new names (Convergence and Transitional programmes) with funding cycles agreed before Brexit and continuing through to 2020.
When the EU funding stopped, the then Conservative government stepped in to help with the annual Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF), with Cornwall receiving around half the amount it had previously.
However, the Labour government has not renewed SPF, with the current tranche of funding coming to an end at the end of March, leaving Cornwall largely reliant on itself to boost its economy.
The new £30 million Kernow Industrial Growth Fund, which was announced in the last Budget, will be a boost for Cornwall but it will only be invested in areas such as critical minerals, renewable energy and marine innovation over the next two financial years to 2028.
The current Liberal Democrat / Independent cabinet at Cornwall Council is working to establish an Evergreen Fund of repayable grants, with £35m earmarked over the next three years, in a bid to plug some of the gap left for community funding in light of the loss of SPF.
At a meeting of the council’s corporate scrutiny committee today (Tuesday, January 27), Lib Dem councillor Steve Webb said: “Is my understanding correct that this will be the first year we will be entering that there’s no more money coming from Objective One, SPF and all those promises of ‘don’t worry, there will be money coming every year’?
“So Cornwall now is effectively alone when it comes to investing in ourselves, building our own economy from here for the first time ever really that we can remember.”
Cllr Tim Dwelly, Independent cabinet member for economic regeneration and funding, then gave a potted history of funding for Cornwall.
“In the days that we were still in the EU and after the end of that we were getting roughly £100m a year from Brussels and other sources linked to that to invest in Cornwall.
“The successor to that was the Shared Prosperity Fund – understandably there was less money, but we did get up to around £48m a year. The year we’re in now is the end of SPF.
“So the Government version of that Objective One money was half – half under the Conservatives and still half under Labour.
“Now as budget pressures mount nationally, it’s gone right down to effectively zero from April. However, the £30m Kernow Industrial Growth Fund you could, I suppose, say is something within a similar structural fund approach.
“But divide that by three and, at best, it’s £10m. So we’ve gone from £100m to £48m to £10m.”
He added: “The sectors not covered by the Kernow Industrial Growth Fund – the rest of the economy, such as high streets, towns, villages and community halls, including the community levelling up fund; all those things we’re all used to as members are all gone.
“That’s why I’m fighting so hard for an Evergreen Fund using our own money to do something. That’s £35m over three years, so less than £12m a year.
“So however you stack it up – even if you put the Kernow Industrial Growth Fund and the Evergreen Fund together – we’re going way, way, way down below half of SPF and less than a quarter of what we got while we were funded by Brussels.”