New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) is to receive nearly �12.3m as its share of a �500m government programme to boost economic growth.

The Growing Places Fund supports key infrastructure improvements to enable creation of homes and jobs, and get developments moving again.

The Greater Cambridge and Greater Peterborough LEP has been awarded �10.9m.

The New Anglia allocation is slightly larger than previously indicated.

Each LEP will identifying its local priorities.

New Anglia LEP is finalising the criteria for bids to its fund and plans to begin consulting with partners in the next few days. The fund itself will open for applications in the spring.

Andy Wood, chairman of New Anglia LEP, said: 'This fund will be used to invest in helping kick-start projects that will create jobs and boost our local economy and is timely help for our area.'

Typical schemes that could qualify for investment include investment in physical infrastructure which would unlock development, creating jobs and boosting the economy.

The fund will be a 'revolving' fund meaning that schemes will have to repay their funding, which will then be used to fund future projects.

The Growing Places Fund allocations form part of a wider package of measures which also includes �432m of cash for local authorities under the New Homes Bonus scheme, in return for the delivery of new homes over the past two years.