South Yorkshire will receive £68m to revitalise town and city centres and protect against flooding over the next 12 months.

Of that amount, £21.35m from the Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA) will be used to fund bricks-and-mortar investment across all four of South Yorkshire’s local authorities. A further £5.5m will be used to protect homes and businesses from flooding.

Mayor of the Sheffield City Region, Dan Jarvis, said: “We’re putting money into our towns and our community, rebuilding the infrastructure that we need to give our people better lives.

“With COVID having hit our businesses and especially our highstreets so hard, the need to revitalise our towns is more urgent than ever.”

Each authority will be receiving a different amount respectively.

Barnsley will receive £3.6m for a community library, new market spaces and a new town square for its town centre.

Doncaster will get £4.6m to fund zero-emission electric buses and retrofitting homes. Rotherham will take on £4.35m for a new business centre and an investment in its Bus Interchange.

Finally, Sheffield will receive £8.8m towards its Heart of the City project around the Peace Gardens, carry out work on Stocksbridge High Street and brownfield housing schemes.

The leader of Rotherham Council, Coun Chris Read said: “A welcome contribution towards our much-needed flood defences schemes.”

The proposals are part of a wider recovery scheme, worth up to £860m. This year alone, the MCA will make a £357m investment into the South Yorkshire region – the largest budget since 2014.