City deal cash sparks new homes project
Investment will also provide school extension
Hamilton looks set for two huge multi-million pound developments.
More than 1800 new homes will be built in the town as a result of investment from the Glasgow City Region City Deal, while Woodhead Primary will receive an extension.
At a meeting of South Lanarkshire Council’s executive committee, councillors approved plans which will see the school get £4.1m as part of the plans set out in the Hamilton Community Growth Area (CGA).
The overall investment in the CGA will be £41.55m with £12m coming from City Deal funding.
Leader of South Lanarkshire Council, John Ross, said: “A project of this scale is wonderful news for Hamilton.
“It shows a joined-up approach to thinking about the best way to deliver homes and all the other necessary infrastructure for people to come and live in the area.
“This will bring massive opportunities for the local economy, by creating new jobs, supporting unemployed people into work, leveraging private sector investment and spreading the benefits of economic growth.”
The meeting outlined how the first Full Business Case has now been produced for Hamilton CGA and involves the extension of Woodhead Primary, which lies adjacent to the CGA site.
Seven new classrooms look set to be added to the school, with capacity for up to 210 pupils.
The report stated that Hamilton Community Growth Area is one of four CGAS that have been combined together to form the project – the other CGAS being located in Newton, Larkhall and East Kilbride.
The Hamilton CGA comprises a number of individual education, transport and community infrastructure sub-projects which will be delivered over a timeframe of up to 10 years.
This will in turn ‘create’ capacity to accommodate the increase in population from housebuilding of up to 1800 residential units, with a focus on family-style houses, for which provision of accessible education (in particular primary school) is a key selling point.
The total estimated population at the new Hamilton CGA is 6345 people, of which 480 are expected to be of primary school age.
Hamilton CGA is the first of these sub-projects to be brought forward to the Full Business Case stage.
The Glasgow City Region City Deal is an agreement between the UK government, the Scottish Government and eight local authorities across Glasgow and the Clyde Valley.
The UK and Scottish Governments will each contribute £500million in grant funding, and the local authorities will borrow a further £130million.