By Alan Irving

Published at 15:43, Wednesday, 28 July 2010

TWO of Whitehaven’s major schemes – the £20 million Albion Square development and an £11 million sports Pow Beck sports stadium – may still go ahead but it is “a race against time” due to massive public spending cuts.

These are key projects in Britain’s Energy Coast West Cumbria regeneration masterplan. Both have escaped the axe in a further round of £52 million cuts which will affect Cumbrian regeneration schemes in general.

The joint £11 million new sports stadium is an integral part of the overall £25 million Pow Beck Sports Village scheme. But ex-energy minister Brian Wilson who chairs the Energy Coast Board, warned: “We are clearly going to be hit hard by the cuts... the saving grace for West Cumbria is the nuclear money.”

Nuclear Management Partners, which operates Sellafield, has donated £20 million of private sector money over the next five years to aid major Energy Coast projects in both Copeland and Allerdale. This could help offset anticipated cutbacks and enable major schemes to go ahead.

There is continued confidence in the Pow Beck scheme because at its latest meeting the Energy Board gave the go ahead for a second planning phase for the Whitehaven sports stadium. Some £300,000 was recently spent on a feasibility study.

Mr Wilson said:“Last week we did nothing to de-rail either Pow Beck or Albion Square. I certainly hope they can go ahead but I have to say that both have land acquisition issues as well as funding issues. If we start messing around with or get locked into compulsory purchase on these schemes then the level of uncertainty increases. This is the real danger.

“Time is of the essence because public finances are going to get worse before they get better. We will need to focus on our genuinely strategic and popular projects, but it is a race against time.”

Asked by The Whitehaven News how much the Energy Coast Board expected to lose in cutbacks, Mr Wilson replied: “No final figures yet but we are talking millions.”

Published by http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk