Worcestershire LEP unveils Growing Places projects
WORCESTERSHIRE Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has announced details of the public infrastructure projects that are to be awarded a major slice of the £3.8m in funding set aside to help kick start development schemes.
Under the government’s Growing Places Fund, the LEP Board has approved loans for ‘shovel ready’ schemes in Worcester, Kidderminster and Pershore, where construction could start as early as the summer.
Initially, at least 500 jobs could be created in the short term as a result of the funding, and many more are expected to follow.
The first four projects to be allocated support are Hoo Brook Link Road, Kidderminster; University Park, Worcester; Worcestershire County Cricket Club and Springhill Farms, near Pershore.
In South Kidderminster, £1.2m in LEP support will help spearhead progress of the first phase of an enterprise park, by funding the prime access route known as Hoo Brook Link Road.
This will open up 24 hectares of redevelopment land on the former British Sugar factory site, where the employment element could create up to 450 jobs.
LEP finance of £1m will also help bring forward the first phase development of the proposed 47-acre University Park in Worcester, where plans for enterprise, science and wellbeing campuses were approved by planners last week.
This means construction of a community health centre and doctors’ surgery can now go ahead with money to help install infrastructure to the site, which ultimately could employ more than 2,000 people.
The LEP board has also approved £750,000 funding to Worcestershire County Cricket Club to speed up its £10m redevelopment plans. Money will be used to aid construction of improved access and infrastructure to a new 120-bedroom hotel and to the club’s new hospitality, conferencing, administration and spectator facilities, which received planning approval last week.
In Pershore, Springhill Farms has secured £275,000 for the development of a new road traffic island on A44 to enable the construction of a £5m anaerobic digestion plant. This plant will use green waste from the company’s growing processes to generate energy and heat for the adjacent commercial glasshouses, which in turn will be extended, thus safeguarding and creating new jobs.
An additional £575,000 in finance has been held back for subsequent schemes still under consideration or which may emerge in the months ahead.
Worcestershire LEP executive chairman Peter Pawsey said: “We carried out an extensive exercise with our public and private sector partners to identify value-for-money schemes which already had detailed plans developed and were ‘shovel ready,’ so that funds have an immediate benefit.
“Funds are allocated as a ‘revolving loan,’ so it was vital that projects could provide returns which can be reinvested in future development.”
Growing Places funding is awarded to developments where infrastructure and site constraints can be addressed to unlock jobs or housing potential.
