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Funding support

Delivering the necessary infrastructure such as local transport, health and education facilities, public realm improvements and green spaces is critical to delivering housing, not only for future residents, but also to address the aspirations and concerns of existing communities. This infrastructure should be funded through mainstream departmental funding, private sector contributions and additional funding such as Growth Funds.

The Department provides Growth Funds to the Growth Areas and Growth Points to support the delivery of infrastructure. The Department has made available £1.7bn of finance in the CSR07 period (2008/09-2010/11) to support the delivery of infrastructure. Growth Funds are awarded to local authorities as unringfenced grant giving them the freedom and flexibility to decide how to use funding to best meet local priorities.

The Community Infrastructure Fund (CIF) (external link) is a joint fund between the Department and the DfT which complements mainstream transport funding. CIF is designed to support the delivery of small and medium sized transport schemes that are directly linked to major housing developments or unlock opportunity opportunities for new housing supply.

£100m is supporting 13 Schemes in the Thames Gateway and £200m has been allocated to support 41 schemes in other areas of England.

The private sector also contributes towards the cost of delivering housing and supporting infrastructure. The introduction of the Community Infrastructure Levy will give local authorities the power to collect a charge on identified new development. The proceeds of the levy will be spent on local and sub-regional infrastructure to support development.