Update on the Growth Deal

Here’s a progress update on the latest major infrastructure and skills projects across Greater Lincolnshire which have been funded through the Government’s Growth Deal:

Lincoln Transport Hub

The Transport Hub in Lincoln is fully operational and has had a truly transformational effect on the city centre, encouraging increased use of sustainable transport and bringing further investment into the surrounding area. The scheme has already achieved a Safer Bus Award 2018; a Park Mark Award for the Multi-Storey Car Park; and the 2018 East Midlands Celebrating Construction Civil Engineering Project of the Year Award.

Peppermint Park Food Enterprise Zone, Holbeach

Following the successful completion of the Peppermint Junction roundabout, works to provide improved access to the emerging Food Enterprise Zone (FEZ) and to secure necessary utilities for the FEZ site are under way. The LEP has contributed £3m towards the cost of infrastructure in Phase 1.

The LEP has also given £2.4m to the new Agri-Food Centre of Excellence as an anchor project on the Food Enterprise Zone.  Work is expected to begin on this catalytic building for the site early this winter.

Driven by the University of Lincoln, the centre will support key sectors, delivering innovation support services, research and relevant skills provision for Greater Lincolnshire’s agrifood businesses.

Go Skegness

This sustainable transport and public realm improvement project aims to make it easier for people to travel around the Skegness area by bus, bike or on foot.

There has been fantastic progress on three elements of this project. At Gibraltar Point, changes have been made to widen and resurface the segregated footway/cycleway along the existing route of carriageway.

At Beacon Medical Practice, two fully accessible bus stops with raised kerbs and tactile dropped crossing points have been installed, making it easier for elderly and disabled people to get on and off the bus when making a trip to the surgery.

A new 25-metre footway has been created between the bus stops and the medical centre and additional improvements have been made to the existing path.

As part of the Go Skegness project, the 1,650-metre footpath between Spirewic Avenue and the Butlins Cycleway has been resurfaced in some parts and the path has also been widened. Additional improvements have also been made to mitigate flooding on the footpath and to increase the cycle parking on Winthorpe Avenue with 10 additional cycle stands.

Access to Employment Zones- Toll Bar Phase 1

The Toll Bar Junction has a history of congestion in rush hour. This project will improve traffic flow, ease congestion and support housing and employment growth. Work is estimated to take approximately six months to complete and will begin this autumn.

The congestion reduction will enable the traffic generated by a series of nearby planned developments to come forward, stimulating growth in the Lincolnshire.

SHIIP Phase 1– Strategic Ecological Mitigation

The South Humber Industrial Investment Programme (SHIIP) will benefit the economy and local community by unlocking land for development through providing ecological space to protect the environment on the south Humber bank. Construction work will begin on the Cress Marsh inland site in September 2018 and will be complete by December 2018.

SHIIP Phase 2 – Humber Link Road

Construction starts on site in January 2019. The completion of the highway in autumn / winter 2019 will enable development land to be accessed from the highway, providing a strategic link between the ports of Grimsby and Immingham.

Skills Capital Investment Fund Programme

Work began this summer on two of the schemes under this programme: the Digital Skills Centre at New College Stamford involving refurbishment of existing premises, and Boston EMAT (Engineering, Manufacturing and Technology) Centre - a new-build facility to be managed by Boston College starting this September.  Our investment will enable a £5 million project to go ahead, which will create an industry-driven training facility in engineering, manufacturing and agritech. Once completed, it will support an additional 600 learners a year in LEP priority sectors.

Medical School

The Higher Education Funding Council England (HEFCE) and Health Education England (HEE) confirmed in March 2018 that the University of Lincoln’s collaborative bid with the University of Nottingham to establish a new medical school had been successful.

Growth Deal funding of £5m has already been provisionally allocated for a Greater Lincolnshire Centre for Health Science, which will form part of the new medical school.

The school will welcome its first cohort of undergraduate medicine students in September 2019.

Boston Quadrant

The London Road junction is still to be progressed, but most other elements of the infrastructure scheme are now almost complete. The Unlocking Affordable Rural Housing scheme has made tremendous progress, and contracts have been exchanged with a local registered provider for 62 affordable houses.             

Scunthorpe Town Centre

The delivery of the new council headquarters in Church Square is an essential part of the regeneration of Scunthorpe town centre as a place to do business. The extension to the current facility will see 900 staff use the headquarters as their base and was opened in April 2018.

Nearly £4m of LEP funding will be supporting the delivery of key highways infrastructure contributing to the extension of Church Square House including purchasing the former BHS building to enable improved employment space in the town.

Europarc Food Enterprise Zone

Europarc III is a fully serviced, high-quality business park which contains a large concentration of agrifood sector businesses. The scheme will utilise most of the undeveloped land on this site and provide much needed factory space for investors looking to locate their business in Greater Lincolnshire or expand their operations, if already located here.

Construction of the first unit is scheduled to commence in January 2019 and each unit will take approximately six months to construct.