Regeneration chiefs have been given the green light to spend £500,000 on a crack team to help the expansion of Thetford.The cash will fund five posts to oversee a 6,000 home and 6,000 job expansion of the town as part of its designation as a growth point area.

REGENERATION chiefs have been given the green light to spend £500,000 on a crack team to help the expansion of Thetford.

The cash will fund five posts to oversee a 6,000 home and 6,000 job expansion of the town as part of its designation as a growth point area.

Bosses last week told Breckland Council's general purposes committee that just £150,000 of the cash will come from council coffers. The rest will be found through grants, councillors were told.

Mark Stanton, economic development and regeneration manager, told the general purposes group that having the team would make sure the first three years of growth point - driving forward the delivery of new housing, employment areas, and infrastructure improvements - was professionally implemented.

And that this would help open the door to more funding for up to 14 years.

The budget for three years in total is £572,400 and will fund, over that period, a programme manager, on a £53,000 salary, a part-time team support post, on £11,500, a principal planning officer, on £57,600, a planning policy officer, on £38,000, and a senior claims officer on £28,000.

Two of the posts, the principal planning officer and senior claims officer, were already in place and were what would cost the council the £150,000.

The decision by the general purposes committee still has to be ratified by full council and cabinet.