You’ll probably remember that the expansion of Pan was given the go ahead by the Isle of Wight council planning committee just over a week ago.
Worryingly it appears that there might be a problem brewing for the development.
We understand from Cllr Geoff Lumley that the IWC has twice bid for funding from a £1 billion government scheme called “Kickstart” and has twice failed to be successful – most recently last week, just after the passing of the Pan expansion.
This funding would be used for infrastructure costs like roads (to the tune of £11m) that the previous selected developer, Miller Homes, balked at when it came to the crunch last February.
£1 billion was available
The Government set up ‘kickstart funding’ of £1 billion back in the spring Budget to assist stalled housing development schemes like Pan during the economic recession.
In Round 1, £360m was allocated to successful bidders. The IW Council had bid for Pan, but failed this round.
The latest Round 2 has allocated £550m to further successful bidders.
What now?
A loss of potential funding in this economical climate must come as a blow to the scheme and the IWC.
UPDATE: The Isle of Wight Council provided us with a statement (kindly, as it was the xmas eve-eve):
Acting Director of Community Services Mark Howell said “While we are disappointed at the news in relation to the Kickstart funding, this will not affect the project in any way. “The prospective bidders are fully aware that Kickstart funding is not guaranteed and they will have made allowances to cover the cost of the infrastructure of the site”
We asked Cllr Lumley his views, “I’m not sure where this leaves the Council’s plans now. They were expressing bravado that they could manage without the funding, but that now needs to be lived up to.”
Looking further than the immediate unsuccessful bid, he continued, “Most importantly, questions need to be asked why the Council are failing these bidding rounds ?”
PFI
It emerged at the recent IWC scrutiny meeting that the £millions that the IWC is putting towards applying for PFI funding for the Island roads (they’ve put aside £7.6m recently) would not be reclaimable if the PFI funding bid was not successful.
