Press Release

01 February 2018

Funding boost for Welborne Garden Village and M27

Fareham Borough Council has been awarded £10m in Government funding to help deliver vital road improvements for Welborne Garden Village.

The money from the Housing Infrastructure Fund will be used towards upgrading J10 of the M27 into an 'all-moves' junction.

The funding is effectively the last piece of the jigsaw in terms of finance needed to carry out the work, the total estimated cost of which is in the region of £60m.

The Council submitted its bid for the grant in September last year with the support of the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), Hampshire County Council, Suella Fernandes, MP for Fareham and George Hollingbery, MP for Meon Valley.

Leader of Fareham Borough Council, Cllr Seán Woodward said: "This is excellent news for the delivery of Welborne Garden Village and indeed for those who use the M27 on a regular basis. With this funding in place we anticipate works could start as early as 2020, supporting in the delivery of thousands of new homes."

Hampshire County Council's Executive Member for Environment and Transport, Councillor Rob Humby, said: "I am delighted to see that funding has been secured to improve the infrastructure at Junction 10 of the M27. These improvements will play a key factor in enabling the network to cope with the increase in vehicle movements accessing Welborne Garden Village, along with encouraging economic development in the area."

John Beresford, Managing Director at Buckland Development Ltd, said: "This funding will help to bring us another step closer to the early delivery of infrastructure at Welborne. We are continuing to work with the Highway authorities and look forward to seeing the upgrades to J10 of the M27 take shape."

Welborne Garden Village will deliver 6,000 homes, some 5,700 jobs, a new secondary school, three primary schools and new recreational, community space and health facilities. 

ENDS

Notes to editors

• The Government invited applications to the Housing Infrastructure Fund in July 2017.
• The grant fund is in two parts:
  • Marginal Viability Funding – to be used to provide the final missing piece of infrastructure funding to enable homes to be delivered at pace.
  • Forward Funding – to support a small number of high impact infrastructure schemes.
• The £2.3billion fund was more than doubled in the Autumn Budget due to the extent of demand.
• To date £29m of public funding has already been secured through the Solent LEP and the Department for Transport, both of whom are vital partners for the successful delivery of the M27 J10 scheme. A further £25m will come from the developers.
• HCC has bid for £123m Forward Funding for Welborne to be announced in March.

For further information contact:

The Communications Team, Tel: 01329 824310

e-mail: publicity@fareham.gov.uk

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