Nottinghamshire County Council are set to submit a bid of around £40 million for a share of the government’s levelling up fund.
The bid is being submitted with plans to upgrade thousands of homes, jobs and improve transport infrastructure in Toton, with the main focus of the proposal surrounding a link road that will help progress the wider Toton and Chetwynd project.
With the scheduled closure of the Chetwynd Barracks site only two years away, the land has been earmarked for around 4,500 homes, employment space, and a major transport hub. With the link road plan to open the site up to transport connections originally expected to cost around £30 million, Nottinghamshire County Council are now preparing a larger bid to help the development.
Leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, Councillor Ben Bradley, said
“We’re working on rail links and road links, we’re going to put that bid in, and that’s our next big transport project for the county. This is the key that unlocks all of the opportunities because it gives us the access to the site to get it started.
It’s massive for the wider, regional economy and the Government is trusting the DevCo to do big work.
“It’s in legislation that the DevCo will get planning powers through the Levelling Up Bill to bring these sites forward, put infrastructure in, agree what’s going in there and set standards. The Government is properly backing it, consistently giving us what we’re asking for and we’re getting the vehicles and opportunities in place to crack on with it.”
The link road was actually approved by councillors last year, and it follows the government saying that they would provide two years of funding so that wider plans can be drawn up for the Toton and Chetwynd sites. These wider plans will benefit the levelling up bid being submitted as it shows further development plans that can help prove the viability of the proposals.
The levelling up bid is set to be discussed further by the cabinet of Nottinghamshire County Council at the beginning of July.
