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Green Light to a new £64.5 million City Deal

The Glasgow City Region Cabinet has given the green light to a new £64.5 million City Deal project which will provide funding for all eight of the Regions’ councils to refurbish existing or to create new commercial or industrial premises.

The new project is designed to tackle a key problem identified within the Region’s economic strategy around a lack of available modern, high-quality commercial and industrial premises - due to the declining availability of stock and a lack of investment into new or existing spaces.

The new Enabling Commercial Space Programme seeks to contribute towards addressing this market failure. It will open up areas of industrial land capable of immediate development, attract private sector investment, create more flexible business space for a broad range of sectors, bringing sites on the Vacant and Derelict Land Register back into use and importantly create sustainable, high-quality business locations to support SMEs, supply chain businesses and start-ups.

Each council has submitted a longlist of potential locations for funding. Now the councils will progress towards a final shortlist of projects, with a business case developed for each to evidence the funding requirement for inclusion in the final programme.

At Cabinet, the Outline Business Case for East Kilbride Town Centre was also approved. This is notable, not just because South Lanarkshire Council reconfigured their City Deal transport project to an ambitious re-imagining of East Kilbride Town Centre – to address changing priorities in the ten years since the Deal started. But additionally, as this should be the final Outline Business Case that Cabinet approves, with all projects now in Full Business Case stage or beyond.

You can read more in the February edition of the Directors blog by Kevin Rush, Director of Regional Economic Growth.