Every time the recipients of a new government fund are announced, we wait with bated breath in the hope the town will have something to celebrate.

But in recent years our success rate has been very poor. The Levelling Up fund replaced the Pinch Point fund and followed on from the Future High Streets fund.

On Budget day it was announced that Exmouth’s bid was unsuccessful - our ambition to fund the Dinan Way extension (despite funding having previously thought to have been secured through the now abolished Pinch Point fund) was not among those schemes announced as having received funding.

We’re all desperately disappointed for all the hard graft that officers at East Devon district and Devon county councils have put in, working to incredibly tight deadlines. Our bid was ambitious and credible, not only extending Dinan Way but enabling significant improvements in our town centre.

East Devon MP Simon Jupp has said he is requesting feedback from Ministers so we can prepare an amended bid for the second round. However, we must confess to finding the entire bidding process frustrating.

One council leader in another part of the country, a Conservative, has described these centralised funding competitions as akin to ‘beauty contests’ and argued the government ought to be supporting all areas in need. We concur. Local taxpayers are actually at risk of losing money if the bids are unsuccessful, because they cost significant amounts to produce. At present, successful bids seem to be being almost exclusively awarded to Conservative constituencies in the ‘Red Wall’ in the North of England and areas represented by Cabinet Ministers. Cash awards designed, effectively, to keep votes in the newly won Conservative constituencies at the next election.

We think it is wrong and borders on corrupt for any party to seek to win votes in this way - it happens in America.

We know the East Devon constituency is not as tight a marginal seat as others so we have concerns about the prospects of future bids. While that won’t stop us from working collaboratively with the MP and do the best we can to submit the best bid we can, we call on Mr Jupp to start questioning the process at Westminster.

One recent House of Lords select committee inquiry concluded that seaside towns like ours are in need of serious investment. Councils don’t have the money to provide that.

The Chancellor’s Budget failed to give councils the leg-up we need, with the Institute of Fiscal Studies warning that the £4.8 billion grant to local government will be wiped out and more by rising costs for councils - meaning we will be forced into the tragic choice between making cuts or having to go out to local referendum to increase council tax.

Our view on levelling up is simple: these projects can be positive and regenerative, but without proper, consistent funding for local councils, all we get is levelling down. These projects do not collect rubbish or fix potholes. But when such projects are touted, and large sums of money are presented as an opportunity to us, of course we want our town to be part of the running.

We would finally urge Mr Jupp to in future avoid unduly raising hopes and expectations within our community, as he did with his broken promise on the now defunct Future High Street Fund. Untruths in election campaigns may boost a candidate’s chances of winning an election, but in the long-term it reduces trust in the good faith of all elected representatives and makes it open season for people of our ilk to be abused, intimidated and potentially worse. Our pledges have always been sincere, realistic and truthful.

We therefore call on Mr Jupp to do the decent thing and apologise for his broken pre-election promise and continue to work with us and the wider community on submitting an even more exciting new bid for the next round of Levelling Up funding.