Gravity smart campus: Somerset leader raises funding concerns

Borrowing to cover infrastructure costs for a major employment site near Bridgwater could be politically hard to secure, a council leader has warned.

The former Royal Ordnance Factory in Somerset is being converted into an employment site but requires roads and possibly rail links to be successful.

Gravity smart campus is east of the M5 between Puriton and Woolavington.

One idea is to borrow funds to deliver the site, with the money being repaid using future tenants' business rates.

Sedgemoor District Council has been working to help deliver the Gravity smart campus, which could potentially support 7,500 new jobs, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

But the leader of Somerset County Council, Bill Revans, warned significant sums would have to be borrowed to construct infrastructure.

A £10.3m access road, linking the site to the A39 Bath Road that opened in October, has been funded by the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

There are also ambitions to connect the site to the main railway line between Bristol and Exeter - but LEP officials warned that could cost up to £50m.

The remaining infrastructure costs fall to the new unitary council to deliver, which could be funded by borrowing.

That borrowing could be repaid through business rates paid by the firms that move into the campus, Stuart Houlet, the district council's assistant director for inward investment and growth said.

Mr Revans said: "Putting this together in the context of what's going on with local government in Somerset at the moment and the future of the LEP must make it incredibly difficult.

"It's spinning plates with jelly on top. There will be caution from some of my colleagues that we are being asked to borrow a considerable amount of money for investment in one particular area."

District councillor Mark Healey said the benefits of the site outweighed the risks of borrowing.

"The prestige for Somerset and the unitary authority is huge - look at the international recognition that we're going to get, and the support we're going to get going forward.

"It puts Somerset on the world map. This is one of the biggest infrastructure builds in Europe, how can we afford to not go forward with this?"

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