Cambridge Lep asks regional growth fund for new cleantech hub and Chesterton station
Cambridge is seeking a £27.6m slice of the government’s £1.4 billion regional growth fund, including £10m to build Chesterton train station and £2m to kick-start a low carbon cluster.
The bids have been made under the regional growth fund’s hugely oversubscribed first round offering, which is expected to provide between £250m and £300m.
Led by Cambridgeshire County Council and the Greater Cambridge-Greater Peterborough Local Enterprise Partnership (the Enterprise Partnership), the Chesterton station bid is understood to be a request for either a capital grant or loan to connect to the main line service to London Kings Cross.
Further money will be needed to fully fund the station and is expected to be provided by Network Rail among others, who proposed the bid together with the County Council.
A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire Horizons, the group leading the Enterprise Partnership Lep, said the station is important for infrastructure development, a County Council priority.
She said: “We expect new office space to be built as a knock-on effect of the connection to London. 80% of journeys to Cambridge Station come from North of the city.”
A second Enterprise Partnership bid has also been proposed by the Cambridge University and is to support a low carbon hub focused on developing skills and intellectual property in the area in an effort to nurture a much stronger cleantech cluster around Cambridge and Peterborough.
The £2m is for three years and would be match-funded by the University, who is being supported by Anglia Ruskin University. The hub is seen as a natural extension of the work that will be undertaken at the Hive once that centre’s ready.
The Enterprise Partnership has also backed a further £15.6m worth of schemes with letters of support for four bids linked to economic development through enterprise and increasing broadband digital infrastructure.
Further bids may also have been made from the private sector alone with no local authority involvement.
blog comments powered by Disqus