Plymouth City Council press release:
A parcel of land at Sherford is to be acquired by South Hams District Council to help progress plans for a key Freeport tax site and unlock hundreds of jobs.
A key local company is interested in developing a logistics facility on land at the edge of Sherford, which could create a base for hundreds of skilled jobs.
The site has already been identified as one of three tax sites within the Plymouth and South Devon Freeport.
The land is currently owned by the Sherford Consortium, a partnership between award-winning national housebuilders, Taylor Wimpey and Vistry Group, which includes Countryside Partnerships, Linden Homes and Bovis Homes.
A decision is being made to enable South Hams District Council to acquire 7.9 hectares of land to allow enabling works to get underway.
Plymouth City Council as the accountable body for the Freeport is using its processes to formally allocate £3.5 million of Freeport Seed Capital Funding into the Capital Programme for the land acquisition.
Plymouth City Council leader Tudor Evans said: “This decision will help speed up the ground and preparation work needed on this allocated Freeport site to get it ready for development. In a nutshell, this means more jobs will be available sooner.”
South Hams District Council’s Executive Member for Economic Development, Commercial Strategy and Governance, Councillor John Birch, said: “This land acquisition will enable us to unlock the Freeport’s Sherford site by at least a year, if not more, than what had originally been modelled within the Freeport’s Full Business Case. This means we can support the Freeport’s objectives of more jobs and regeneration activity for the South Hams quicker than planned.”
In September a business case and £4 million Freeport seed funding was signed off to enable work on industrial units at Beaumont Way in Langage, the largest Freeport tax site, to get underway in the new year. The site is being bought forward in phases with Beaumont Way the first development for the Freeport.
In the same month, £1.3 million of Freeport seed funding was allocated to fund strategic infrastructure developments at Millbay Docks.