Infrastructure Recovery Strategy

In July 2017 the Government launched a £2.3bn Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) to finance the infrastructure needed to unlock growth through house building.

In 2019 Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) submitted a bid to the HIF for improvements to M5 Junction 10 to create an ‘all movements’ junction. GCC were successful with their bid and have been awarded funding to deliver the upgraded M5 Junction 10 as well as a new road linking J10 to the west Cheltenham area, improvements to the A4019, Coombe Hill junction and the Arle Court Park and Ride site being expanded and converted to a ‘transport hub’.

GCC, as scheme promoter, and in line with Homes England's policy, is committed to recovering funds from development sites that benefit from forward-funding where possible and to producing an Infrastructure Recovery Strategy (IRS) to achieve this. This IRS would generate funds for future investment from developments benefiting from the infrastructure improvements.

To provide greater weight to the Infrastructure Recovery Strategy, GCC are aiming to adopt the strategy as council guidance. Although currently focussed on M5 J10 the IRS will also be used to recover funds from developments across the county in the future which benefit from Government funded infrastructure. The funds recovered will help deliver growth elsewhere in the county.

The IRS will aim to seek a recovery fee during the section106 negotiation stage of planning applications.

As part of the adoption process GCC are consulting publically on the Infrastructure Recovery Strategy to obtain feedback on the proposed method for recovering funds. The consultation will run for 6 weeks from the 28 January until the 11 March 2021. We want to engage the public fully so that responses can be fed into developing the IRS for adoption by the council later in 2021.

 You can take part in the Infrastructure Recovery Strategy consultation here . Please respond by 5pm on 11 March.