An unhappy birthday for regional aid

The Regional Development Agency (RDA) in the West Midlands is known as Advantage West Midlands and it is to get 152 million pounds sterling from the government to redevelop the site of the Longbridge car factory which has been abandoned by BMW. The chairman of Advantage knows that a major problem will be helping the 50,000 local people who are affected by the closure of Longbridge. The government money was allocated so rapidly because it had already been put aside for BMW. However, the RDA's money for dealing with other social problems has not increased.