SUE SKINNER A £18m investment by a national regeneration agency today cleared the way for the construction of King's Lynn's Millennium Community.The new settlement on the Nar Ouse Regeneration Area (Nora) at South Lynn will ultimately accommodate 900 energy-efficient homes, a range of community facilities and land for commercial development.

SUE SKINNER

A £18m investment by a national regeneration agency cleared the way for the construction of King's Lynn's Millennium Community.

The new settlement on the Nar Ouse Regeneration Area (Nora) at South Lynn will ultimately accommodate 900 energy-efficient homes, a range of community facilities and land for commercial development.

Work has already started on the housing area - Yours South Lynn, which is currently cut off from the existing South Lynn community by the Puny Drain drainage channel.

The £18m from English Partnerships, plus a £2.75m contribution from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), will pay for a length of the channel to be diverted to improve the drainage of the area as a whole.

This will allow the redundant section of the channel to be filled in and used for development, acting as a link rather than a barrier between the two communities and allowing the plans for Yours South Lynn drawn up by developer Morston Assets to become a reality.

The Puny Drain has already started and is expected to take 18 months.

Morston Assets' managing director, Tom Harrison, said: "It will permit Yours South Lynn to integrate with the rest of the community and permit the construction of facilities to be shared by both new and existing residents."

As well as two-bedroom apartments to five-bedroom town houses, Yours South Lynn will include a primary school, health centre, community centre and sports and social facilities.

Elsewhere in Nora, there will be new shops, including a supermarket, a business park and an enterprise and innovation centre, providing a focus for job creation.

The area is unique among the UK's seven Millennium Communities, because it is the only one where the land is not owned by English Partnerships.

About half the land at South Lynn belongs to Morston Assets, which has already invested £4.5m in the project and signed a £10m construction contract with Jackson Construction.

The rest is owned by West Norfolk Council, which is committing £8m and receiving £2m from English Partnership for the development of community facilities.

EEDA is putting in £6m and Norfolk County Council has paid for an £8m access road.

Houses within Millennium Communities are built to high environmental standards, with the developments acting as models for sustainable living.

The show home at Yours South Lynn is due to be officially opened at 10.30am on Saturday.