Community Development: Expenditure

Michael Gove
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what public expenditure has been to date on the millennium communities scheme.

Yvette Cooper
There are seven millennium communities. Greenwich Millennium Village was the first to be announced in 1997. The others are at Allerton Bywater (near Leeds), New Islington (east Manchester), South Lynn (Kings Lynn), East Ketley (Telford), Oakgrove (Milton Keynes) and Hastings. In total the programme will bring forward over 9,000 eco-home ‘Excellent’ standard homes, plus other commercial and community facilities, providing inspiration to both the development industry and the general house-buying public and demonstrating how difficult sites can be brought back into use.

It is not possible to identify the costs linked only to the millennium communities themselves. To date, public expenditure related to the programme amounts to a total of £131,565,732. This figure covers costs outside those that relate specifically to the seven millennium communities, because it is not possible to disaggregate costs retrospectively. It therefore includes elements of the remediation cost of the wider English Partnerships' 121 ha (300 acre) Greenwich peninsula site and not just the costs for the 13 ha (32 acre) section that is the Greenwich Millennium Village itself. The Greenwich Peninsula was previously the site of the largest gas works in Europe, and is one of the largest development sites in London and one of Europe's biggest regeneration projects.

This expenditure by English Partnerships on the millennium communities will be offset by receipts as the land is sold through the usual competitive arrangements to the preferred developer on each site.