TAUNTON is being awarded more Government funding to help achieve its Garden Town ambitions, sharing a £2.5million pot with other designated communities.

The local award - £375,000 – is funding designed to help Taunton Deane Borough Council make progress with vital planning work to deliver Garden Town principles.

The money is the second award to be made as the council was awarded £350,000 when Taunton was officially announced as the South West’s only Garden Town in the New Year.

Announcing the award, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said: “Locally-led garden towns have enormous potential to deliver the homes that communities need.

"This new funding will help support the construction of more than 155,000 homes in nine places across the country.

"New communities not only deliver homes, but also bring new jobs and facilities and a big boost to local economies.”

In Taunton Deane, work that needs to be completed includes:

  • Drawing up planning blueprints for key sites under the Garden Town plan;
  • Moving ahead with infrastructure planning – such as roads – and developing a plan to deliver the infrastructure;
  • Progressing infrastructure projects to help deliver the new garden communities and Taunton town centre regeneration sites.
  • The Council is already investing significant staff resources across the authority to deliver the Garden Town programme, with priority areas including town centre regeneration schemes, new garden communities, the new strategic employment site, flood alleviation and strategy development. Thees new award will allow us to continue the good work already being done.

Council leader Cllr John Williams said: "We are investing £16.6m of NHB funding to ensure strategic projects happen.

“We are aware of existing community concerns about transport links, facilities like schools and health centres and our commitment is very much in line with the Government’s preference that NHB funding is used to ensure local communities benefit from growth-related income.

“This allocation of a six-figure sum to improve our capacity to deliver our Garden Town ambition is a real vote of confidence in Taunton as a strategic centre in the South West and a credit to our team that put our bid together.”