- It gave me great pleasure to hear the announcement this week that the Government had confirmed additional monetary support for two of our region’s major infrastructure schemes.
Of the £854m set aside to aid 21 transport schemes across England, £82.6m has been allocated to the New Wear Crossing in Sunderland as well as £21.1m for the Morpeth Northern Bypass which will link the A1 to south east Northumberland.
This is fantastic news!
Our Regeneration Team has been working on the New Wear Crossing project with Sunderland City Council since 2005, preparing the acquisition strategy for all the land assets along the corridor that will enable the creation of England’s tallest bridge.
(No less than 187m high with a 336m long bridge deck, it will cross the River Wear from Castletown on the north side of the river to Pallion on the south…)
To-date, this project has faced two main challenges. The first being funding and the second, the confirmation of the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) that will allow the project to obtain the land mass needed for construction.
We have been working with the in-house estates team to deliver the acquisition strategy and have been called on to act as experts in the provision of evidence for the public inquiry for the proposed CPO for the land necessary to build the bridge and associated roads.
Once confirmation is obtained, the scheme will progress with construction works beginning later in 2012 with a completion date of autumn 2015.
Public sector regeneration schemes akin to the Sunderland and Morpeth projects often include at least some land which is not in public ownership and our expertise is often called upon to deliver wider strategic work needed to successfully promote a CPO.
Our team works in tandem with legal advisors and the design team throughout the CPO process.
The new bridge over the Wear will mark Phase 2 of the Sunderland Strategic Transport Corridor and will provide a trigger for regeneration in the area which will benefit both the Sunderland community and the wider North East region.
Richard Farr
Partner, Rating and Regeneration
(0191) 269 0115
richard.farr@sw.co.uk
