Telford and Wrekin to move ahead with three regeneration schemes

Telford & Wrekin Council and the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) are set to invest £19m into three brownfield sites in the borough.

The sites in Telford Town Centre, Donnington and Wellington would together create around 500 new 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.

A report to the council’s cabinet shows that the schemes would be funded by £12m from the local authority’s own £60m 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.

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.

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 local authority acquired last year.

In total these three schemes would bring more than 20 hectares of derelict land back into use.

‘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,’ said cabinet lead for regeneration, Cllr David Wright.

‘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,’ added Cllr Wright.

‘At such a challenging time and in so many ways, now is the time for totally committed leadership to 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.’

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