Island Quarter development fails to meet deadline for £4m funding

EAST MIDLANDS MAYOR PULLS CASH TO BUILD NEW HOMES

- By JOSHUA HARTLEY

THE massive £1.4 billion transformation of Nottingham's largest regeneration site faces a fresh hurdle after more than £4 million in funding for new housing was pulled.

The Island Quarter site, which had been known as Boots Island before it fell into dereliction after the city's health and beauty giant left in 1996, was in line to benefit from millions in Government money to speed up the construction of 322 homes.

However, it has now been revealed that Claire Ward's East Midlands mayoral authority withdrew the £4,156,100 grant as developer Conygar decided it would not be able start construction by the deadline of March 31 next year.

The setback comes amid a lull in visible progress on the site between London Road and Manvers Street, with the project's second and most recently-completed building the Winfield Court 693-bed student accommodation block finished in August last year.

The opening phase of the Island Quarter project, touted as a 10-year and £1.4 billion scheme to build a “city within a city,” opened in late 2022.