Rutland County Council votes to decline Government Housing Infrastructure Fund grant of £29.4M
Date Published: 23 March 2021
Last night Rutland County Councillors voted to not accept Government Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) grant totalling £29.4m.
Rutland County Council submitted a successful bid to the Government to help fund infrastructure improvements for the proposed future redevelopment of St. George’s Barracks in North Luffenham as a garden village.
HIF is a national programme managed by Homes England that has made £5billion available to support the building of new homes by making sure important infrastructure, such as improvements to roads and public transport, can be put in place at the right stage. Only local authorities were eligible to apply for HIF.
Full Council met last night to consider the HIF grant and after considerable debate, Councillors voted to not accept the Government grant and will not receive the additional central government funding to support the St. George’s development. In the vote, 13 members voted against accepting the HIF grant, 12 voted for and two abstained.
“The decision on whether to accept HIF was extremely important and Full Council has now had their say. The Council will now be looking to work through the implications of this decision.” Council Leader, Cllr Oliver Hemsley
Rutland County Council submitted its application for HIF funding in February 2019, based on the latest Evolving Masterplan for the St. George’s site. A report noting the bid’s success was presented to Cabinet on 19 November 2019, with Full Council given the final say on whether to accept the funding. In January 2020, with some of the terms and conditions for the HIF grant still to be confirmed by Homes England, Councillors voted unanimously to defer their decision on HIF until final details were known.
St. George’s Barracks, which is owned by the Ministry of Defence, is due to close in 2021/22, prompting proposals for a new Garden Community that would include up to 2,215 new houses, together with a further 30 possible houses on the site of the current Edith Weston School.
