Growing places funding kick starts regeneration of Dudley

THE multi-million pound regeneration of Dudley’s Castle Hill has moved closer to reality after proposals for a 1,000-space visitor car park were given the green light for funding.

The Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has supported Dudley Council’s £600,000 application for Growing Places funding to enable infrastructure work on a new car park to get underway.

This should kick-start the development of a major project to create one single visitor entrance to Dudley Zoological Gardens, Black Country Living Museum and Dudley Canal Trust.

It is anticipated the site expansion and additional visitor numbers will create 480 new jobs on the site.

The LEP has a total of over £14m of Growing Places funding to allocate to worthy causes in order to help kick-start developments.

The allocation to the Castle Hill site is the second announcement detailing where funding will be spent. This follows quickly on the heels of the recent decision that £500,000 will go to site investigation works at the Darlaston half of the Black Country Enterprise Zone.

Paul Brown, private sector lead for access the finance on the LEP board, said: “We are pleased to be moving forward with allocating Growing Places funding which is targeted at getting stalled projects off the ground.

“The decisions to fund the enterprise zone in Darlaston and the Castle Hill infrastructure works will undoubtedly help to kick-start two huge developments for the region.”