Mipim latest: Urban & Civic secures a £45m HCA loan

A 4,500-home Urban & Civic scheme in Cambridgeshire has been boosted by a £45m loan from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).

The investment from the Home Building Fund will help the developer accelerate the scheme by funding infrastructure works at the 1,400-acre former airfield at Alconbury Weald near Huntingdon.

Announcing the deal at Mipim this week, Nick Walkley, chief executive at the HCA, said: “This deal is exactly the sort of thing we are here to do - providing the means to realise the full potential of development sites and provide the impetus to enable a real transformation in local housing markets.”

The scheme will also provide up to 300,000 sq m of employment space and a range of community facilities, including a secondary school and three new primary schools of which the first opened last year and hundreds of acres of green space.