£5 million government funding boost for new Grantham A1 junction
Highways England anounce funding boost for a new junction on the A1 in Lincolnshire.
A £5 million funding boost for a new junction on the A1 in Lincolnshire that will help create almost 5,000 jobs was announced by Highways England today (5 December 2016).
Highways England’s Growth and Housing Fund is contributing to the new £23 million junction on the A1 south of Grantham, enabling plans for the 193-hectare Spitalgate Heath Garden Villages urban extension to move forward.
The £100 million Growth and Housing Fund is in addition to the Government’s £15 billion investment in roads between 2015 and 2020. It provides financial contributions towards the cost of road improvements that are needed for new developments which promise swift delivery of homes and jobs.
The new junction, part-funded by developer and local authority funds, will unlock more than 1,000 new full-time jobs on the sites it will directly serve.
A further 4,000 jobs and up to 3,700 homes will also be created in a new urban extension, which will include a new local centre, schools, community facilities, conserved woodland and a network of innovative “blue green corridors” to assist with flood alleviation.
The urban extension programme will be delivered by the local authority with support from the Homes and Communities Agency, Network Rail, Greater Lincolnshire LEP and £28.5 million developer contributions. The Growth and Housing Fund is a national Highways England initiative to support improvements to the strategic road network that will help create thousands of jobs and homes.
Ian Parsons, who is leading on the initiative at Highways England, said:
Today’s funding is a boost for growth that will help kick-start a major regeneration scheme as well as alleviate congestion, meaning better journeys for motorists.
New homes and workspaces bring jobs and prosperity to communities. Our job is to ensure the road system supports that prosperity by funding additional road capacity to serve significant new developments.
We will continue to use our Growth and Housing Fund and work with a range of local stakeholders to unlock further development sites around the country.
Ursula Lidbetter MBE, Chair of the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership, said:
The Greater Lincolnshire LEP is already contributing £28 million of Growth Deal funding to the wider scheme, and confirmation of this £5 million investment by Highways England via the Growth and Housing Fund towards the A1 junction is extremely good news.
These improvements will enable significant new housing and employment, will address congestion issues and will contribute to economic growth across Greater Lincolnshire and beyond.
Also announced today, the North West is to benefit from a multi-million pound junction improvement on the M60 at junction 8, which will unlock a key housing and employment site in Warrington, creating more than 1,400 homes and over 10,000 new jobs. Highways England is contributing £3 million from the Growth and Housing Fund.
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