Chancellor green lights £600m of infrastructure cash

The new chancellor Sajid Javid has given the green light to more than £600m of funding for housing-related infrastructure improvements.

The £600m will help deliver five projects in London, Central Bedfordshire and Essex.

The money is part of the government’s £5.5bn Housing Infrastructure Fund, which was launched by Mr Javid when he was communities secretary in 2017.

Around will £218m will go to the ‘Beaulieu Station and North-East bypass’ bid from Essex County Council to deliver a new train station and road improvements to unlock up to 14,000 homes.

In addition, £156m has been awarded to the London borough of Enfield to deliver rail works, road infrastructure, land remediation, flood alleviation at Meridian Water.

A further £99.9m has been awarded to the ‘Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community’ bid from Essex County Council to deliver a new single carriageway link road and works to unlock up to 7,500 homes.

And £69.6 million has been awarded to the ‘Transformational Growth in Biggleswade’ bid from Central Bedfordshire to deliver a new secondary school and transport infrastructure to unlock up to around 3,000 homes.

The GLA has also been awarded £80.8mfor the ‘East London Line – Growth Capacity’ bid to deliver transport upgrades to unlock up to 14,000 homes.

‘I want to see more homes built in the places people want to live, so more people realise the dream of homeownership,’ said Mr Javid.

‘But we need the roads, rail links, and schools to support the families living in those homes, which is why I set up a fund to put in place the infrastructure to unlock new homes in these areas.’

In June, ministers announced it was spending £142m on two schemes under the Housing Infrastructure Fund.

The first development is in Woking, Surrey, where the government will spend £95 million to build up to 4,500 homes in the town.

A further £47m will also be spent on new road links in Truro, Cornwall in order to unlock an extra 4,000 homes.

Photo Credit – The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Flickr)