Rebecca Pow, the Member of Parliament for Taunton Deane, is delighted that her campaign for the final tranche of funding that will help unlock a strategic employment site at Junction 25 of the M5 has been successful.
Highways England have just announced the final £4million of funding towards the upgrade of this Junction adjacent to the new Nexus employment site. This project will be developed alongside Somerset County Council and the Heart of the South West LEP.
The scheme will unlock a 35-hectare local authority–led development site, with the potential to deliver up to 2,400 jobs and substantial benefits to the operation of the Strategic Road Network. This will link in with the £7million announced last week to help ease congestion between Junction 24-25 of the M5 as well as the £6.7million allocated from the Local Growth Fund to help traffic flow on the Toneway.
There has previously been some uncertainty around this funding allocation and Rebecca went to see the Chancellor personally to explain the huge significance of this project and the economic opportunities that it would bring to the area. Alongside this, Rebecca invited the Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, down earlier in the year to stress the same points and he agreed that there was huge potential at the site.
Rebecca said: ‘I was delighted to hear of yet more funding coming to Taunton Deane after I lobbied the Chancellor and Transport Secretary about the massive positive impact that this site could have on the region. For years Somerset has been dominated by Lib Dem MP’s and has seen chronic under investment in infrastructure. Just in the last few weeks an incredible £17million has been committed to Taunton Deane to upgrade our roads network.
This has been possible through the successful handling of the economy by this Government. I am glad that with 5 Conservative MP’s and a Conservative lead County Council we are beginning to see a more appropriate level of funding and I would like to assure my constituents that I will continue to work hard with both the County and District councils to see this continue.’
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