Councils will borrow millions for Black Country polluted land clean-up
Millions of pounds will be borrowed by councils to clean polluted land in the Black Country to make it ready to create thousands of jobs.
Various sites that are part of the Black Country Enterprise Zone – set up by Chancellor George Osborne with incentives for businesses to create jobs – will take years of work to make ready.
But the lengthy programme of work may mean that businesses that move to sites in Darlaston and Wolverhampton will not do so in time to take advantage of some of the Government- backed incentives, such as a five-year business rate holiday.
The incentive is only available to firms that are in place and trading by April 2015.
However, regeneration chiefs say the long-term benefits of the Enterprise Zone will be felt over 25 years because they have the power to raise millions of pounds to make the sites ready.
They will pay back that borrowing by being allowed to keep all the additional business rates they collect, rather than sending them to the Government as they do at the moment. Now Walsall Council is putting together a business case to borrow the money it needs to decontaminate land such as Phoenix 10 in Darlaston, which used to be the IMI copper works.
Up to 4,000 jobs are capable of being created on 14 sites in Darlaston and five in Wolverhampton, including the i54 where Jaguar Land Rover is building a £500million engine plant.
The reclamation work at the i54 has already been done by regeneration quango Advantage West Midlands, prior to its abolition in 2011.
Simon Tranter, head of regeneration at Walsall Council, said: "The key issues are around reclamation of the sites and making them economically viable."
