£196m boost for West Midlands announced by Chancellor
The Chancellor has announced a series of investments across the Midlands in his Autumn Budget statement.
Some 11 projects will benefit, including:
£196 million in total for 11 projects from the first tranche of
allocations from the Fund:
• Regenerating the Goods Yard in Stoke-on-Trent.
• Improving the A457 Dudley Road in Birmingham.
• Developing a City Learning Quarter in Wolverhampton.
• Improving the Canal Towpath in Kidderminster.
• Regenerating the Moseley Road Baths in Birmingham.
• Redeveloping Stoke-on-Trent City Centre to create 250 new homes and a 2500-
seater venue.
• Refurbishing the Prince of Wales Theatre in Cannock.
• Building a Physical Activity Hub in Bedworth.
• Redeveloping three sites across Stoke-on-Trent, creating over 200 new homes
and over 160 square metres of community space.
• Regenerating two prime brownfield sites in Bromsgrove Town Centre into
commercial and cultural space that also reconnects the high street.
• Remediating 20 hectares of unusable land in East Birmingham and North
Solihull.
As we announced earlier this week, there will be £1bn to the West Midlands for schemes such as completing the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill metro extension and Sprint Phase 2.
There will be £2.6m to amplify Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture 2021, and up to £50,000 each through the Restoring Your Railway ‘Ideas Fund’ to develop two early-stage proposals to reinstate passenger rail links between Stoke and Leek and Oswestry and Gobowen.
Jay Boyce, partner at MHA MacIntyre Hudson, said: “On the basis of the the Budget, the public finances seems to be in better condition than at first thought. The Chancellor is benefiting from the receipts from the tax changes brought in earlier in March and is transferring those into investment. It’s allowed him to take the handbrake off a little a bit little more bullish.
“The impact of Covid last year was doom and gloom, but it appears it wasn’t as bad as predicted. There’s a tendency that if we think worst, we think absolute worst. But it’s not been as bad as we were thinking in the boardrooms up and down the country. Rishi is mirroring that.”
