Wyre Forest District Council welcomes yesterday’s  announcement from Communities Secretary Sajid Javid confirming the government cash boost of £17.5 million for Worcestershire to help create jobs, support businesses and encourage growth.

Cllr Ian Hardiman, Wyre Forest District Council’s Cabinet Member for Planning and Economic Regeneration said,

“This significant investment is a really positive for Worcestershire and Wyre Forest residents and businesses will benefit too. 

We can now take forward our vision for Churchfields Urban Village near Kidderminster town centre where we have plans to relieve traffic congestion, provide new homes and improve the Horsefair local centre.  The Churchfields Masterplan was adopted by the Council in September 2011 so we are very pleased to see this moving to the next stage.

Our original plans, developed with Worcestershire County Council, amounted to over £4 million of investment in a new highway layout, but we won’t know the specific amount until further design work is complete. 

The aim is to provide the necessary highway infrastructure to deliver phases 2 & 3 of the Churchfields Urban Village.  This includes relieving traffic congestion along the A456 and A451 Blackwell St/Stourbridge Rd and improving air quality in Blackwell Street to meet Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) objectives. A key feature of the plan is to build around 300 new homes and create an improved environment for shopping. “

Other Worcestershire projects likely to benefit from Local Growth Funding over the next few years include:

  • Improvements to the A38 at Bromsgrove to speed up journey times and accelerate the delivery of housing and jobs growth;

  • A new engineering facility for Heart of Worcestershire College at Bromsgrove and Redditch to meet the needs of local employers; and

  • Improvements to the Pershore Northern Link Road

These, alongside other projects, will improve skills, create jobs, build homes and improve infrastructure.  This latest award of Local Growth funding is on top of £54.2 million of Growth Deal funding already awarded to Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership. This will see jobs created, homes built and extra investment.