South Lynn Millennium Community
The site
The South Lynn Millennium Community is a 48.5 ha (120 acre) site to the south of King’s Lynn town centre and was the fourth Millennium Community to be identified.
It is being built on mostly derelict land, next to the River Ouse. The area was once home to a flourmill, shipyards, a fertiliser plant and a gasworks. The industries disappeared and its railway line closed several years ago.
Puny Drain, a water drainage channel, traverses the site and travels into the heart of South Lynn. English Partnerships is delivering a multi-million-pound project to redirect the water, reclaiming land for development as part of this Millennium Community.
Background
South Lynn Millennium Community forms an important part of the larger Nar Ouse Regeneration Area (NORA) project in King’s Lynn. This is the largest brownfield regeneration project ever handled in West Norfolk and one of the largest in the east of England. When completed, the scheme will provide more than 900 houses and 60,000 sq m of commercial space.
The vision is to create a 20 ha Business Park and associated residential and commercial development, as well as a 3 ha site for mixed use and large areas of open space and landscaping. There is even the prospect of re-opening the River Nar to navigation by boats.
The Millennium Community will create a new school, a sports and games area, a community hall and health facilities. It will also link to a retail area, meeting local shopping needs. The re-direction of Puny Drain will fuse together the old and new communities of South Lynn, ensuring equality of access to the new facilities that a Millennium Community brings.
Current status
Nearly £30m of public-sector investment has been earmarked to provide basic infrastructure, community facilities and site remediation. English Partnerships, King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council, the East of England Development Agency and Norfolk County Council are providing this funding.
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Download a factsheet on South Lynn Millennium Community from the Publications page.
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Part of the Millennium Community site is owned by developers Morston Assets, who have also become partners in the project. Since the Millennium Community gained its economic appraisal approval from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in December 2004, work began to realign a section of the Puny Drain in order to link the existing and new community. This work is anticipated to be completed early 2008 allowing construction work on the new community facilities to commence.
It has taken clever re-master-planning to incorporate the sought after combination of residential units, community facilities and commercial space. Adjacent land could also be made available to relocate some of the campus for the University of East Anglia.
Morston Assets continue to construct the first phase of the Millennium Community houses and their show home opened in November 2006, and the first residents moved in December the same year.
It is proposed to bring forward plots on the Millennium Community owned by the Local Authority and English Partnerships for additional housing built to revised Millennium Community standards and to align with the Code for Sustainable Homes.