Less than 20% of nearly £700m the Government has poured into its growth areas to fund infrastructure to support housing development has gone to the Thames Gateway, while no less than 45% has gone on the predominantly greenfield Milton Keynes/South Midlands area.
Communities minister Iain Wright told Andrew Stunnell MP in a Commons written answer that, since 2005-6, DCLG has spent £696m on infrastructure to support house building in its four "growth areas" which make up much of the land between Corby in the East Midlands and Ashford in Kent.
£34.5m had gone to the Ashford growth area, £138.1m to the Thames Gateway, £206.7m to the London-Stansted-Cambridge-Peterborough corridor and a huge £315.4m to the Milton Keynes & South Midlands growth area.
The money includes Thames Gateway funding, the Growth Areas Fund (the Growth Fund since 2008-09) and the Community Infrastructure Fund (a dual-key fund managed by the Department for Transport in 2006-8, DCLG in 2008, and transferred to the Homes & Communities Agency in December 2008).
"This funding is additional to mainstream departmental funding in areas such as health, education and national transport networks," admitted Mr Wright.
Apart from the Thames Gateway, most of the new housing land in the growth areas is greenfield sprawl.
