A deal worth £172 million agreed by the council’s top team will mean roads, schools and other infrastructure is built in Aylesbury before 10,000 new homes go up. 

Planning and finance chiefs at Buckinghamshire Council now have permission to say yes to the completed deal on councillors’ behalf after the cabinet gave proposals their blessing.

EXPLAINED: The £172 million deal which will see 10,000 homes built in town

Once approved, it will see the council and Homes England team up to build infrastructure such as schools, roads and electricity stations to enable the construction of 10,000 homes in Aylesbury.

Speaking at a meeting of the Buckinghamshire Council’s cabinet, Leader Martin Tett said: “This is to provide essential infrastructure to enable the delivery of housing.

“We were awarded £172 million to deliver something in excess of 10,000 houses predominantly in Aylesbury, but this also has implications for other parts of the county.

“This paper is effectively seeking agreement that we sign a contract with Homes England as the agency acting on behalf of the government to secure legal release of this money.

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“It’s a really big achievement to have gained this money from government.

“It’s really important because it will help us deliver many of the link roads around Aylesbury.

“Anybody who crawls into Aylesbury every day will know they are desperately needed.”

Worth an eye-watering £172 million, the deal will see the council partner up with Homes England to enable the building of 10,000 homes, roads and schools stretching to 2035.

These homes will be some of the 16,000 set to be built in Aylesbury over the next 13 years as part of the Garden Town project.

A timetable included in the contract would see an infrastructure programme delivered by 2024 to enable the building of 1,046 homes by March of that year.

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Joan Hancox, transport strategy chief at Buckinghamshire Council, said: “This really is to address what residents have frequently told us, is that they wish to see infrastructure provision in advance of housing coming forward and that’s what this fund enables us to do.”

But the final wording of the deal has still not been agreed, meaning the cabinet was asked to hand over powers to officers to agree to the completed contract.

From the other 15 cabinet members present at the meeting, only two other councillors spoke on the recommendations, which included creating a new governance board to add an extra layer of oversight for the ambitious building programme as well as delegating authority to sign off the deal to officers.

Cllr Bill Chapple said: “The money we are putting this into will greatly improve the centre of Aylesbury and the other towns mentioned.”

Cllr Warren Whyte added: “[This is] a really important step to start delivering the Aylesbury Garden Town we all have ambitions for.”

EXPLAINED: What is Aylesbury Garden Town?

Leader Martin Tett asked if other members wished to ask questions of the financial details in a behind-closed-doors session, but queries did not come forward.

With this, the cabinet agreed to the recommendations after just ten minutes of discussion at a meeting on Wednesday, October 13.