WORCESTERSHIRE will receive a £17.5million boost to help job creation and support business and growth across the county.
The cash injection, announced by Bromsgrove MP Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, will include improvements to the A38 to speed up journey times and accelerate the delivery of housing and jobs growth.
There will also be a new engineering centre for Heart of Worcestershire College to meet the needs of local employers.
The funding, alongside other projects, will improve skills, create jobs, build homes and improve infrastructure and comes on top of the £54.2million of Growth Deal funding already awarded to Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership.
Mark Stansfeld, Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership Chair, said: “In Worcestershire we are already seeing the results from the Growth Deal funding awarded to date, which is leveraging significant private and public sector funding.
“We are on track to deliver an extra £2.9billion increase in Gross Value Added (GVA) locally by 2025.”
Coun Simon Geraghty, the vice chair of the Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership and Leader of Worcestershire County Council, added: “Recent statistics have shown that Worcestershire’s economy is growing significantly with the strongest growth in higher level workforce skills, second position for the highest growth in productivity and the third highest growth in prosperity out of all Local Enterprise Partnership areas.
“This announcement is great news to keep up this momentum.”
