More public money could be poured into a Frome regeneration scheme to speed up the planning process.

Mendip District Council's planning board voted in January to grant outline planning permission for the Saxonvale regeneration scheme, which will see up to 300 homes and commercial outlets built on the long-vacant Frome site.

The council has already committed millions of pounds towards the regeneration project, with Homes England providing nearly £4 million of additional funding to help 'unlock' the site.

Now the council is planning to spend an extra £175,000 to ensure more detailed plans are in place by the end of the year.

The matter was due to be discussed by the council's cabinet on Monday evening (July 5), but the meeting was postponed to the following week at short notice due to "technical issues".

While outline permission was granted in late-January (despite significant public opposition), some of the "enabling works" to clear and prepare the site cannot get under way until all legal agreements are finalised between the council and the Acorn Property Group, which is taking the scheme forward.

Homes England provided £3.95 million of grant funding towards these enabling works – but the money has to be spent in its entirety by December, or it may be withdrawn.

The council has already spent £9.2 million on the Saxonvale site, including its purchase in August 2018 and the work carried out in the run-up to the outline plans being approved.

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Richard Bates, the council's chief financial officer, stated in his written report: "Some enabling works required can only be delivered when the section 106 agreement is signed.

"To achieve this, the reserved matters applications are being developed by Acorn. It is therefore important for this work to be completed promptly, to ensure that the delivery agreement can be signed with Balfour Beatty and the Homes England funding used to generate the best value for money for the overall scheme."

The £175,000 will be sourced from the council's capital budgets, rather than being diverted from revenue spending on front-line services.

The first of the reserved matters plans which the council intends to come forward concerns the proposed bridge over the River Frome, which Mr Bates said would "add value to the site" and thereby produce a higher return for the council once the scheme was completed.

Mr Bates added that work was being carried out to reassess the overall viability of the Saxonvale scheme.

He said: "A viability assessment is now being carried out by Acorn and our property advisers, Cushman and Wakefield.

"This will provide an updated assessment of potential scheme returns but will not be finalised until later in the year."