MORE than £400,000 of additional funding has been approved to ensure regeneration efforts in Chard town centre can move forward.

South Somerset District Council is delivering a new swimming pool and leisure centre as part of its flagship Chard regeneration scheme.

Numerous improvements to Chard’s public realm are planned as part of the scheme – including changes to the layout of Holyrood Street, improvements to the “eastern gateway” and revamping the entrances of two car parks near the leisure centre.

But to ensure these projects can move forward, the council has voted to provide an additional £412,500 on top of other grants already secured.

The council’s district executive committee took less than half an hour to approve the extra funding when it met virtually on Thursday morning (July 7).

Anna Matthews, the project manager for the public realm elements of the scheme, said that both Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic had caused the costs of the various parts of the scheme to increase.

She said in her written report: “The recovery of the national construction output to pre-covid levels has been faster than expected. It has led to high demand for contractors and constrained capacity.

“At the same time, there is also increasing pressure around the availability of construction materials, and higher EU duties on some imports.

“This combination of factors is leading to shortages and extended lead times, and ultimately impacting on costs.” 

As part of the public realm improvements, the entrances of the two public car parks nearest the leisure centre – Boden Street and Marketfield – will be upgraded.

This work must be completed by October 31 in order to ensure the leisure centre can open over the winter.

The council had previously secured £1M from Historic England as part of its high street historic action zone (HSHAZ) fund – but this must be spent in its entirety by March 31, 2022, with Ms Matthews stating it was “very unlikely” that any of the funding could be carried over to the next financial year.

In order to ensure all the different projects could move forward, the council needed to sign an agreement with its chosen contractor by Monday (July 12) – hence the urgent need to ensure the additional funding was in place.

Councillor Peter Seib, portfolio holder for legal, finance and democratic services, said that other projects (such as the Yeovil Refresh programme or the Wincanton regeneration scheme) would not lose out as a result of the council choosing to commit these sums.

He said: “The effects of this additional commitment are basically to reduce  the amount of money that we have for income generation and to remove the amount we have set aside against other contingencies.

“There isn’t any project which is directly affected by this allocation.

“We do keep general reserves specifically for things which are not foreseen – and this is one of those circumstances where we have an unavoidable situation.”

The granting of the additional funding brings the total net budget for the Chard regeneration scheme to £3,412,500.

Councillor Peter Gubbins, portfolio holder for the Yeovil Refresh programme, described granting the additional funding as “a no-brainer”.

He added: “It would be criminal to not forward this money to complete what has been achieved there already. This is something we should support wholeheartedly.”