APRIL 6 will be the day money goes into the bank to start a £79m investment in transforming Dorset’s economy.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg put his signature to the first round of the government’s Growth Fund for Dorset during a visit to Cobham at Wimborne at the end of last week.

The first round involves £66m and includes the rebuilding of the A338 Spur Road and a package to improve access to both the Port of Poole and Bournemouth Airport.

The government says the full Growth Deal could mean up to 26,000 jobs and 3,000 new homes in Dorset by 2021.

Gordon Page, former chairman of Cobham, chairs the Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), which submitted the application for government money.

He said after the signing: “Today marked the signing of the first round, £66m worth of investment from central government into Dorset. covering the two biggest schemes – the complete rebuild of the A338 and all the roads around the airport and the rebuild and design of the infrastructure around the port of Poole.

“It’s the start of a six-year programme. We bid annually for funds for priority projects. There will be tens of thousands of jobs created and we want to get Dorset’s Gross Value Added beyond the national average.

“You can already see the start of works on the A338 Spur Road with the verges being cleared.”

He said the LEP had reached agreement with Natural England to treat protected reptiles along the route of the A338 with “due care”.

“Construction will start after this summer season and the air show,” he added.

Preparatory work was done ahead of a planned rebuild of the A338 in 2010, but that project was called off when the coalition government came to power.

Mr Page said: “Several times we’ve nearly got there but this time it will happen. As part of the flexibilities we’ve won for the LEP, the first tranche of this £66m will be paid into the bank account on April 6.”

Mr Clegg, who met young members of staff at Cobham during his visit, said of the Growth Deal: “I think it will make a massive improvement – the road access to the A338, the road access to the industrial park, the state of the airport, access to Poole Harbour, investment in apprenticeship, building more homes, the boost to the digital economy in the local area which is so important.

“All of this is part and parcel of renewing and rewiring the economy here in the local area, just as we are renewing and rewiring the economy generally after the near death experience we endured back in 2008.

“And I’m chuffed to bits that after years and years and years of over-centralisation – where all the decisions for this part of the south coast were being made by previous governments were in offices Whitehall and Westminster – finally we’re doing something much more sensible, much more grown up.

“We’re allowing local people to decide what they want and giving control over millions of pounds of money that was previously hoarded in Whitehall to the Local Enterprise Partnership, local authority and others locally who know what’s best for the local area.”

He added: “I’ve been very much in the forefront in government over the last five years to argue in favour of City Deals, Growth Deals, the Regional Growth Fund – all these things I set up because it just seemed very obvious to me that at a time when central government has less money to go around, at least we should be giving more freedom to local areas, and that’s what growth deals are all about.”

He added: “It’s also part and parcel of a big change which is happening across the UK as we see power being devolved to Scotland Wakes, Northern Ireland, and to the big cities of the north I think people here on the south coast kind of think: ‘Hang on a minute. If all this power’s going to other parts of the country, why can’t we have a bit of that as well?’ – and I agree with them.”