Options to regenerate a town centre estate are being explored.
In April Great Yarmouth Borough Council awarded £320,000 for the council to undertake a feasibility study.
Now the council is exploring a range of regeneration options for the town’s Middlegate Estate.
Once a team of architects and consultants are recruited to assess whether plans are viable, residents will be asked for their views and will help with the design of any final plans.
Middlegate is the only estate in Norfolk, Suffolk or Cambridgeshire to receive cash from the government’s £32m Estate Regeneration Fund, with a share of funding granted to more than 100 estates across England.
The deadline to submit plans to the government is next December by which time a ‘menu of options’ will have been explored, with residents taking an active role.
Chairman of the council’s housing and neighbourhoods committee Andy Grant said it was much welcome investment which supports the council’s commitment to improving lives within our communities.
He said: “Earlier this year, Great Yarmouth Borough Council was informed it had bid successfully to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) for funding to undertake a feasibility study to identify potential options to regenerate the Middlegate Estate.
“The DCLG funding is purely for a feasibility study, rather than any physical regeneration work, and part of the study will be to actively explore funding streams.
“This project is at an early stage and the council is following a phased approach. No decisions have been made.
“The feasibility study will start in the coming weeks and the first stage will be to undertake a viability assessment, in order to understand what is achievable, at what cost and how it might be managed.”
Communities secretary Sajid Javid said a number of housing estates across the country have areas characterised by low-quality homes and high social deprivation.
He added: “This government is determined to have a housing market that works for everyone. That’s why we’re turbocharging the regeneration of these rundown estates, so they can thrive as communities.”
Housing and planning minister Gavin Barwell added estate regeneration must be locally-led.
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