The government has been making a flurry of announcements about new investment areas in recent weeks, the single biggest of which was a proposal for a jaw-dropping 250,000 new homes in Cambridge.
We reported on the Cambridge news last week on Property Investor Today. Here are the four new schemes:
- A ‘Docklands 2.0’ vision in East London for up to 65,000 homes across multiple sites including Thamesmead, Beckton and Silvertown. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities says: “Beautiful, well-connected homes and new landscaped parkland will be integral to the vision. We will look at how we can ensure better transport connections from east to west, to ‘crowd in’ local and private investment, and to build the best evidence on how and whether the government will invest in the future.”
- London will also be the focus of the government’s decision to allow the Affordable Homes Programme to be directed towards regeneration for the first time – with up to £1 billion available in London alone. This is part of what the government calls “a transformative reform” that will change how we level up communities across the country. The DLUHC comments: “We have also made £1 million available to push forward work with the Mayor to consider how we drive housing delivery in London, including looking at innovative new ways that industrial land can be released for housing.”
- In central Leeds the government says it will work with partners to regenerate the city centre and explore how a West Yorkshire mass transit system could open up the city to many more workers across its burgeoning financial, digital and legal sectors. The government has already allocated £40m to West Yorkshire Combined Authority to support development of the mass transit system and offer what it pledges will be “a greener, quicker and more reliable option of travel.” The government will accelerate work in the centre of Leeds by identifying t housing growth sites within the city rim including the South Bank, Innovation Arc, and local and neighbourhood plans, potentially delivering up to 20,000 new homes over the next decade.
- And finally, the government says it will work with local partners in Barrow-in-Furness, to help make it a new “powerhouse of the North” extending beyond its current boundaries with thousands of new homes and space for new businesses to benefit from the scientific and technical expertise already clustered there.