New board to help Corby secure millions for regeneration

The popular Corby International pool has helped the regeneration of the town and a new phase could not be in the offing if government cash is secured.

In September the Ministry of Homes, Communities and Local Government (MCHLG) announced that Corby was one of 100 places in the country to be included in the Towns Fund, a £3.6bn pot of cash to help give a boost to towns with an industrial heritage.

The next step now is for the council to put together a Town Deal Board that will come up with a Town Investment plan by the Summer. This will then be submitted to Government which will then decide on how much money will be coming into Corby, with previously cited amounts of as much as £25m.

The government has given the authority a £162,000 grant to set up the board and run community events and sitting on the board will be members of the council and officers, county and parish council representatives, the town’s newly-elected MP, as well as SEMLEP and local business people.

A report that will be considered by the One Corby Policy Committee on Monday says: “The prospectus identifies three key objectives:

• Urban regeneration, planning and land use: ensuring towns are thriving places for people to live and work, including by: increasing density in town centres; strengthening local economic assets including local cultural assets; site acquisition, remediation, preparation, regeneration; and making full use of planning tools to bring strategic direction and change.

• Skills and enterprise infrastructure: driving private sector investment and ensuring towns have the space to support skills and small business development.

• Connectivity: developing local transport schemes that complement regional and national networks, as well as supporting the delivery of improved digital connectivity.”

The council is also proposing to agree the town’s boundary to include Rockingham Motor Speedway, which is not on the Office for National Statistics Corby boundary.

It has been a number of years since the town, which is the fastest growing in the country, had an official economic regeneration project board. In the 2000s Catalyst Corby was set up by central government which created a plan plan for the town.

The borough council also had its own series of regeneration projects such as the International Swimming Pool and Corby Cube, but since they opened a decade ago there have not been any new big plans in the pipeline.