CONSTRUCTION firms can now enter the second round of bidding for a scheme to create new jobs and homes in Hampshire.

The Solent Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) fund is for largescale infrastructure projects such as road networks, service and utility installation and broadband provision.

Bids will need to be for a minimum of £100,000, with a total of £5.74m available.

This round is open directly to bids from the private sector and the LEP will consider investing in projects on a loan, forward funding or equity share basis.

Grant funding is not available.

The Solent Growing Places Fund operates on a revolving basis in order to support as many projects as possible.

As repayments are made to the fund, this money will be made available to support more projects in the Solent.

The first Solent Growing Places funding round saw £11m invested into infrastructure at the Solent Enterprise Zone, which has leveraged investment from other partners to bring forward an investment package valued at over £25m and will result in the creation of almost 1,200 jobs.

Doug Morrison, chairman of the Solent LEP said: “Today’s announcement is great news for developers in the Solent.

“In the first round of bidding to the Solent Growing Places Fund, we only considered loans to the public sector to ensure we could deliver funding immediately.

“However, the LEP is private sector led and we are focused on ensuring that the private sector can drive our economic recovery.”

The application deadline is on July 31.