Cambridgeshire housing development gets £61m boost

Homes England is to invest £61m in a scheme to build 6,500 homes at Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire.

The housing agency has agreed the investment with developer Urban&Civic to fund key strategic infrastructure at Waterbeach, including roundabout improvements to create a main access route from the A10, road, drainage and utility works.

‘This £61m investment from Homes England, the government’s housing accelerator, will deliver the building blocks of a community that people will be proud to call home, including a new primary school, health centre and community centre,’ said housing minister, Christopher Pincher.

Urban&Civic, in partnership with landowner the MOD, has secured outline planning permission to create 6,500 homes and five schools at the site, a former WW2 RAF Bomber Command airfield six miles north of Cambridge.

The first phase of 1,600 homes is currently progressing through planning, and early landscaping, archaeology and remediation work is underway.

Although Urban&Civic will act as master developer for the MOD for the 716-acre site, it will award the first £15 million worth of contracts to local businesses in the next six months, providing a substantial windfall for the local economy.

Neil Milligan, head of infrastructure finance at Homes England said: ‘Our investment in large scale, long term projects like Waterbeach demonstrates how our funding can help to accelerate the ambition of master developers like Urban & Civic in developing great places to live and work.

‘COVID-19 has presented the industry with many challenges, and it’s great that despite these setbacks we can continue to secure agreements with our partners that build on our pipeline of investing in quality homes and communities and support the wider industry in its recovery.

‘New housing remains a priority and whilst some work is temporarily paused, we continue to work to put the foundations in place for the new homes the country needs,’ added Mr Milligan.

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