The Government is set to roll out a £100m fund for transport and infrastructure investment in Local Enterprise Zones, communities secretary Eric Pickles announced today.

Thirteen of the country's 24 enterprise zones have been short listed to receive the new cash for 18 projects to build local service roads, car parking and other supporting infrastructure.

In addition five zones are also receiving £24m to tackle local traffic bottlenecks and road congestion through the second tranche of local pinch point funding announced in May by the Department for Transport.

Birmingham has been short listed to receive funding for public realm work and car parking.

The successful proposals for a share of the £100m fund will undergo further testing to ensure value for money for the taxpayer, a statement from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) said.

‘The Government is putting its money where its mouth is and making sure enterprise zones have the buildings and infrastructure they need to make sites ready for business to set up in,’ Mr Pickles said.

‘Enterprise zones are proving extremely popular with business - they have already created over 3,000 jobs for local people - a 75% increase in just 5 months - and many more will be coming down the pipeline because of this new support.’

Originally worth £60m, the fund has been granted an extra £40m by the Homes and Communities Agency.

The cash is designed to accelerate the transformation of enterprise zones – which support business through low taxation, flexible planning policies and greater IT capacity - from ‘shovel ready sites into job ready sites’, the DCLG said.

The £104m DCLG fund includes £45m from the Homes and Communities Agency in addition to the £59m Local Infrastructure Fund announced at the last Autumn Statement.

Among the list of projects due to receive a share of the cash is the Birmingham City Centre enterprise zone’s plan to help build a major office space through supporting public realm works and extra public car parking.

Also making the shortlist of schemes is Sheffield City Region enterprise zone’s Waverly project. The Waverley site is the region’s largest mixed-use - employment and housing - site and is planned to provide 140,000 square metres of commercial floorspace. The investment could be used to support infrastructure and site preparation works to unlock the development.

England's 24 enterprise zones have attracted 126 businesses, generated 105,000 square metres of new commercial floorspace and secured almost £229m of extra private sector investment, since being launched in April 2012 ministers said.