£63m cash boost could bring 7,000 jobs to Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire

£63m cash boost could bring 7,000 jobs to Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire

Some 17 projects across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire have been awarded slices of £62.9m as part of the latest round of the government’s Local Growth Fund (LGF).

The big winners are Nottingham’s southern gateway project, which includes the construction of the new Broadmarsh station (£15m), a new Science and Technology Centre at Nottingham Trent University (£8.7m) and a Derby Performance Venue (£8.6m).

However, the East Midlands has received less than two-thirds of the money it had hoped for. The cash will be allocated by the D2N2 LEP, which originally bid for £107m.

The LEP says the cash could deliver up to 7,000 jobs, 700 homes and 2,000 new learners across the D2N2 LEP area; subject to final confirmation via individual projects’ business plans.

The full list of projects awarded money is:

Derbyshire

· Castleward – £1.5m support for current 12 hectare brownfield regeneration site between Derby Midland Station and Derby city centre, to create housing and commercial development.

· Silk Mill World Heritage site, Derby – £3.7m towards a new museum and visitor attraction at Derby Silk Mill, part of the UNESCO Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site.

· Derby Performance Venue – £8.6m towards part of the Masterplan Phase One, for Derby’s City Gateway; this is to provide a 5,000-capacity performance venue in the city centre, whilst initiating regeneration works to a key area of the city centre.

· Woodville–Swadlincote Regeneration Route – £6.4m to help provide a link from the A5111 to the Brownfield ‘Tollgate Park’ site, allowing site development to take place.

· Riverside Business Park, Bakewell – £3.9m for a new bridge and access road from the A6 into the business park, and the development of 130,000 square feet of mixed use floor space.

· Foundry Park, Ilkeston (at former Stanton Ironworks) – £3.4m for project delivering 8,100 sq m of employment space at Foundry Park. LGF investment in Phase One to help develop 2.11 hectares of land.

· Rail Research and Innovation Centre, Derby – £900,000 to support new Rail Research and Innovation Centre for rail supply chain businesses in D2N2 LEP area, to drive productivity within D2N2 rail supply chain.

· Derby College: Institute for Engineering and Professional Construction – £1.3m to help renovate two further education sites, to aid professional development in engineering and construction sectors.

Nottinghamshire
· Former Vesuvius Works, Worksop – £5.5m for works forming part of a wider investment, for a junction to ‘unlock’ a mixed-use housing/employment area.

· Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre, Newark – £500,000 towards a new visitor centre at Sherwood Forest, and improvements to existing walking/cycle routes, to encourage higher visitor numbers.

· Sherwood Energy Village, Newark – £500,000 to develop 32,000 sq ft of industrial floorspace, across ten units.

· HS2 Strategic Sites – £2.4m project to allow D2N2 to purchase sites to take best advantage of planned HS2 Phase Two ‘eastern leg’ route, through Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

· Southern Gateway, Nottingham – £15m towards the wider ‘southern gateway’ improvement; which includes a new Broadmarsh bus station and car park, provision of a tram stop, new retail units, public realm improvements and road improvements.

· Nottingham Castle – £5m towards Castle improvements, including to visitor galleries and public spaces.

· Unlocking Growth in Nottinghamshire Town Centres – £8m for programme of high-quality town centre improvements in Nottinghamshire; to create mixed-use environments in which businesses can prosper, offering sustainable employment opportunities and growth.

· Nottingham Trent University (NTU) Science and Technology Centre – £8.7m for a unique technology centre to increase healthcare-related commercial product development, to support the area’s life sciences sector; as well as investment at NTU’s agricultural and horticultural skills centre (Brackenhurst), and digital skills campus.

In addition, £2.5m has been given towards a Midland Mainline project to help ‘straighten out’ a section of track at Market Harborough; to boost the line’s capacity and improve train speeds on southbound services, and so reduce journey times.

D2N2 says it has already found alternative funding for the Coalite Works site regeneration, near Bolsover, and the refurbishment of business incubation spaces at MediCity, on the Boots Enterprise Zone site; two projects which had also applied for LGF 3 funding.

Peter Richardson, Chair of the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership, said: “D2N2’s very strong bid for Local Growth Fund 3 investment has given us a £62.9million fighting fund, with which to further improve our area’s economic infrastructure.

“This will build on the excellent use we’ve made of our previous LGF allocations; which has resulted in our contributing to the new £30m BioCity Discovery life sciences building in Nottingham, giving £12m to Derby’s ‘Our City, Our River’ riverside regeneration and anti-flood project, and investing significantly in the Nottingham & Derby Enterprise Zone.

“I look forward to seeing the detailed business plans of these ambitious new projects.”

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