10 December 2008
The government is to allocate £605 million to 163 local authorities with long-term plans to increase house building to meet the needs of their communities.
The money is to enable local authorities with ambitious plans for growth to invest over the coming two years in essential services to accompany the building of new homes. These include transport links and schools to the regeneration of town centres and the provision of parks and other green spaces.
Housing Minister Margaret Beckett said: "In these difficult economic times we must not lose sight of the long-term need to build more homes. Yet if the support for these new homes is not in place, their construction will be delayed when we need them most, hampering the economy's recovery.
"This money is targeted at those local authorities with the most ambitious growth plans. As well as helping to build the new homes we need, it will ensure we have the support and infrastructure in place so that these homes become part of the existing community, not a burden on their resources."
The £605 million Growth Fund will be one of the funding streams managed on behalf of government by the new Homes and Communities Agency. It is in addition to the £227 million already paid out for the current year, and completes an overall investment package of £832 million for these local authorities.
Also, £12m of the £605 million will be made available specifically to help some authorities develop schemes in response to climate change, specifically supporting the delivery of government targets on carbon reduction, waste reduction and flood mitigation. Such solutions may take the form of site or area-wide proposals that deliver new communities with innovative approaches to providing low-carbon energy supply and other environmental technologies that may serve a single site or number of potential development sites.
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