Ashfield investment: First stage of £62m fund expected

Initial funding for a multi-million pound investment in Nottinghamshire is due to get the go-ahead.

In June, Ashfield was awarded £62.6m from the Towns Fund, the highest amount for any local authority area.

Its bid included three major employment and skills hubs for automated distribution and manufacturing, construction, and civil engineering.

Ashfield District Council said the government was expected to provide £3.13m to start developing the schemes.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the early release of the Towns Fund cash will be included within the council's capital programme budget, and will be used to develop the business cases involved with the bid.

The authority said it intended to spend the funding on several projects across Sutton and Kirkby.

The skills hubs alone are expected to cost £19m, £2.1m and £7m respectively.

The Towns Fund investment will also be used for a sports hub on Sutton Lawn, leisure improvements at King's Mill Reservoir and a science discovery centre at Sherwood Observatory.

Ashfield Independent councillor Matthew Relf said schemes would start "popping up all around the place" from 2022 and 2023.

"Everyone has seen the exciting announcements of this funding and are desperate to start seeing the output of this," he said.

"As much as I'm extremely excited and enthusiastic about this funding, we do need to temper peoples' expectations slightly.

"It is an awful lot of money, and there are a lot of steps to make sure we're spending it right and appropriately," he said.

Councillors said the money would be released in stages once the government was happy with progress.

The council has already received some government funding through the Accelerated Towns Fund, which went on a new indoor market in Lowmoor Road, Kirkby.

The authority will also receive £6.2m from the Future High Streets Fund, with this bid including a new 'Maker Space' in Sutton and a theatre at Sutton Community Academy.

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