Three major regeneration schemes creating around 500 new homes on previously used brownfield sites in Telford and Wrekin are set to move ahead.
The sites in Telford Town Centre, Donnington and Wellington would together create homes for affordable and private rent and sale as well as specialist and supported accommodation for vulnerable people. In addition, the developments will create new business and leisure facilities and could create up to 60 new jobs.
The schemes will see around £19 million invested by Telford & Wrekin Council and the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership. It follows months of significant, detailed negotiation by the Council to secure external funding from the LEP for the schemes.
A report to the Council’s cabinet shows that the schemes would be funded by £12 million from the Council’s own £60 million Regeneration and Investment fund agreed as part of the Council’s budget setting process in February.
The fund aims, in particular, to help secure match funding from other organisations as it has here, with the Council being successful in securing a further £7 million grant for these scheme from the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Local Growth Fund.
New Station Quarter
One of the key schemes that this money would fund would be to kickstart the development of the new Station Quarter which will help to improve the connectivity between Telford’s train station to the town centre and the Southwater development.
The money would allow the Council to secure land in the town centre to allow the Station Quarter scheme’s infrastructure development to progress. This would enable a mix of a range of housing as well as commercial and leisure developments.
Donnington and Wellington
The other two brownfield sites the funding will support are a site in Donnington for a housing-led development and the former New College site in Wellington which the Council acquired last year.
The funding will allow key infrastructure for all sites to be developed while the Council will seek to build in further measures such as the use of solar energy and the use electric vehicle charging points to help it meets its aspiration for the borough to be carbon neutral by 2030.
Important step forward
Cllr David Wright, cabinet lead for regeneration, said; “This is a very important step forward for three key schemes all using brownfield land to bring a huge level of investment, new homes and businesses into the borough.
“Without our own Regeneration and Investment fund, none of this would be happening.
“Perhaps the most exciting is the potential that will created for the Station Quarter and the part this can play in helping to make Telford an even more attractive destination for our residents and in attracting new investment to the Town, linking Telford station and the town centre and Southwater.
“At such a challenging time and in so many ways, now is the time for totally committed leadershipto drive growth and further stimulus in our economy and that is exactly what we are doing here.
“Such development will be key to help the borough’s economy as it recovers from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.”