Getting Building Fund: £37 million for Kent and Medway

In mid-June, I like other Council Leaders and Chairs of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs)received a letter from the Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick, inviting us to bring forward 'shovel-ready' projects that government could support through a new Fund to boost economic recovery. These were to be put forward to government through the LEPs, in our case the South East LEP (SELEP), of which I am a Director. The scheme would in time become known as the Getting Building Fund. 

Turnaround times were extraordinarily quick, with a meeting of Kent and Medway Economic Partnership (KMEP), the 'federated area' sub-division of the LEP (which embraces Essex and associated unitary councils, along with East Sussex, Kent and Medway)on 9 July and SELEP's Board a week later to confirm our submissions. 

 SELEP secured £85 million from the Fund, the largest sum awarded to any LEP in the country, with £37 million within that awarded to Kent and Medway. Yesterday government announced the detailed awards of the £900 million Getting Building Fund. There were eight successful projects in Kent and Medway, three of them (the first three listed below) led by KCC:

- Connecting Rural Kent and Medway - rollout of full fibre broadband in remote and rural parts of the county 

- Thanet Parkway Railway Station - a new railway station serving Thanet and North Dover, close to Discovery Park 

-  Javelin Way Development, Ashford - educational and industrial facilities 

-  First and Second Floors, Building 500, Discovery Park (Sandwich) - upgrade of laboratory space, supporting life sciences companies based in the Enterprise Zone 

- The Meeting Place, Swanley - new business space and homes in the High Street - a key project for Sevenoaks District Council 

- Britton Farm Redevelopment, Medway - a learning and skills hub for adult retraining 

- Performing and Production Digital Arts Facility, North Kent College - industry-leading training facilities linked to the Thames Estuary Production Corridor for creative industries 

-  Romney Marsh Employment Hub - employment and business space in an area affected by the rundown of Dungeness nuclear power station 

This is excellent news for the county, with schemes from areas ranging from Dartford and Swanley to Romney Marsh. Further progress on broadband is vital, while the Thanet Parkway scheme is a long-running project which the County Council has championed (and which I inherited as an important but challenging scheme when I became Leader) and which can now be brought forward with a range of funding sources.

You can find the government announcement (which makes a particular mention of Thanet Parkway) here.