More than £31 million of Stoke-on-Trent's Levelling Up money remains unspent – nearly five years after the funding was announced.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council was awarded £56 million for a raft of regeneration schemes by the Boris Johnson government in 2021, three Prime Ministers ago.

But figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request show the city council has yet to spend most of the money.

The Goods Yard development next to Stoke Station, which was allocated £16 million of funding, is still the only one of Stoke-on-Trent's Levelling Up schemes to be completed so far.

A total of £8.98 million has been spent on the other projects, including the Etruscan Square development in Hanley and the Spode scheme in Stoke.

Council chiefs insist the rest of the Levelling Up funding will be spent by the March 2028 deadline set by the government.

But critics say the delay in spending the money has left Stoke-on-Trent missing out.

A city council spokesperson said: "The largest element of our Levelling Up Fund remains the £14 million for Etruscan Square and we are in the final stage of negotiations with Genr8 Kajima Regeneration Limited on how this will be invested in a Phase 1 scheme in time to meet the spend deadline.

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"We also have a signed partnership with Capital&Centric for the regeneration of the Spode Works. Circa £6m in Levelling Up funding has been allocated – this is in progress and will meet the spend deadline.

"We also have a signed agreement with Dog & Bone Group to provide a £2 million grant to bring back into use one of the largest buildings on the Spode site, Building 4."

The long-awaited Etruscan Square scheme in the city centre, which was allocated £20 million of Levelling Up Cash, is set to include new homes along with leisure and commercial space.

There were also plans for an indoor arena but these were dropped by the council's current Labour leaders, who said they were unrealistic. The new plans could include a leisure centre to replace the ageing Fenton Manor complex.

A total of £4.4m of Levelling Up funding has been spent on Etruscan Square so far, on professional services, demolition and land remediation.

Another £20m was awarded to projects aimed at bringing three town centre heritage sites back into use: Spode, Tunstall Library & Baths and the Crown Works in Longton.

So far, £2.6m has been spent on Spode, while £1.7m has been spent on the Tunstall scheme and £691,464 on the Crown Works.

Figures released by the council two years ago following a similar FOI request showed that £34 million remained unspent, meaning only around £3 million has been used since then.

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Reform UK group leader Dan Jellyman, who was cabinet member for regeneration when the funding was awarded in 2021, criticised.

He said: "After three years of Labour, what do we have to show for it in Stoke-on-Trent? Three emergency bailouts, three maximum council tax rises, and still £31 million of levelling-up money sitting in the bank doing nothing.

"Labour's inability to deliver anything other than more debt and higher taxes shows what a complete shambles they've made of Stoke-on-Trent."

Stoke-on-Trent's Levelling Up projects will be among the regeneration schemes being promoted by council officials at this week's UK Real Estate Investment & Infrastructure Forum in Leeds.