Levelling-up cash for Wolverhampton 'will build new homes and protect green land'

Stuart Anderson said the city's share of the national £1.5 billion cash pot will allow people to "take pride" in the place they call home.

Wolverhampton and Sheffield have both been identified as the first of 20 areas to benefit from the "radical new generation programme" across England.

Ministers hope the move will bring "fresh life" into disadvantaged communities with the Brownfield Fund cash set to be handed out from April this year.

Mr Anderson, the Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West, said: "As a constituency in which 87 per cent of land is built on, many constituents in Wolverhampton South West quite rightly want to see more being done to protect green spaces from being encroached upon.

"I have been campaigning non-stop for extra funding which can deliver more affordable housing while protecting our precious greenbelt. I welcome this package of support from the Government, which delivers on our commitment to levelling up local infrastructure and ensuring that everyone can take pride in the place that they call home."

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) said the areas would benefit from developments combining “housing, leisure, and business in sustainable, walkable, beautiful new neighbourhoods”.

Pressed on where the money was coming from, the department clarified that the cash to fund the work was allocated by the Treasury last year. It is part of a £1.8bn sum for brownfield regeneration promised by the Chancellor at the last budget.

Rishi Sunak announced an extra £1.8bn to bring 1,500 hectares of brownfield land into use at the last budget in October 2021. The DLUHC said the newly-available £1.5bn Brownfield Fund would form part of this allowance.

The work will be spearheaded by the Government’s housing agency Homes England, which will be “refocused” to deliver on the levelling up agenda.

But Lisa Nandy, Labour’s shadow levelling up secretary, accused the Government of handing out “rehashed pots of money and policies”.

She said: “The limit of this Government’s ambition for Britain can’t surely be this? Rehashed pots of money and policies for just 20 places. High streets will only thrive when people have money in their pockets to spend.

“We need good jobs, decent wages, genuinely affordable housing and action to deal with the unfolding cost of living crisis so people can spend in their local economy and young people no longer have to get out to get on. Instead, they’ve handed a few local areas a fiver and nicked a tenner.”

Meanwhile, the department has announced seven Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) which are set to benefit from £120 million of funding “to transform derelict brownfield sites into vibrant places where people want to live and work”.

The West Midlands, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Liverpool, South Yorkshire, North of Tyne, and Tees Valley areas stand to gain 7,800 homes, the DHLUC said.