Bradford City Village goes before WYCA for funding assurance
The West Yorkshire Combined Authority will consider whether to fund £13m for Phase 1 of the regeneration project being developed by ECF at its meeting on Thursday.
The total cost for Phase 1 is around £33m, which includes £29.3m of Brownfield Infrastructure & Land funding that was agreed with Homes England in February.
This funding, however, is dependent on investment from WYCA during Phases 1 and 2, in order to in order to ‘de-risk’ the site and bring confidence to the market.
The gap-funding from WYCA is intended to ensure that the entire scheme of 900 homes becomes commercially viable, although the WYCA would not be expected to invest after Phases 1 and 2.
If unlocked, the BIL funding will fund early demolition and enabling works, as well as highways infrastructure.
Phase 1 will deliver 96 affordable town houses on Chain Street and Oastler, while Phase 2 will consist of 174 BTR apartments on Kirkgate.
Phases 3-5, which the WYCA is not expected to invest in, will deliver around 630 BTR apartments.
ECF is currently preparing a hybrid planning application with detailed proposals for Phase 1 and outline proposals for the remainder of the scheme, which should be submitted in August.
ECF is also finalising terms with a social housing provider for Phase 1.
The City Village is a 61-acre development to the north of Centenary Square with proposed development on three sites: Kirkgate, Oastler, and land at Chain Street, all of which is owned by Bradford Council, to deliver approximately 900 homes in the city centre.
Sorry but the CGIs look awful. Bradford should not be building any more shoddy modernist boxes. Other European cities are reinstating their traditional architecture and all Yorkshire cities should be doing the same – particularly the more deprived ones. This looks like the sort of architecture other countries are actively pulling down.
By Heritage Action