£12.5m lined up to unlock challenged Lake District housing site
Westmorland and Furness Council will contribute £2.5m towards the delivery of affordable housing at Windermere Gateway while also entering into a £10m grant funding agreement with Homes England for infrastructure.
The £10m Homes England funding will pay for the delivery of highways infrastructure works which include improvements on the A591, Thwaites Lane upgrades, and access into the Orrest Head Farm site, which is earmarked for 242 homes and owned by the National Trust
Urban Splash, the trust’s development partner for the site, secured consent for the infrastructure works last year.
The local authority is also planning to contribute £2.5m towards Urban Splash’s housing development, the largest in the Lake District National Park area, to “to deliver a level of affordable homes that would not otherwise be possible given the inherent viability challenges associated with the scheme”, according to a council report.
The funding aims to unlock the delivery of 133 affordable homes in one of the borough’s most unaffordable areas.
It is also hoped the £2.5m contribution will “give confidence to Urban Splash” to submit an outline planning application for the scheme. The developer has been attached to the project since 2019.
The wider Windermere Gateway project would see the National Trust get a new office, improvements to Windermere rail station, and public realm improvements.
