The cash will pay for work to link Scotland’s biggest regeneration project with the M8 motorway at Newhouse.

This will include tunnelling through a railway embankment, extending a bridge on the A723 between Holytown and Carfin and securing small parcels of land along the A723 required for road widening.

The £1.2bn project to transform the site, creating a new town, is expected to take up to 30 years to complete.

Earlier this year the Scottish Government has granted provisional approval to North Lanarkshire Council’s use  of Tax Increment Funding to kick-start regeneration of the Ravenscraig steelwork site.

The council said final approval would leverage up to £425m of private investment, create up to 4,500 permanent posts and 500 jobs during construction of the new town centre.

Executive director of environmental services at North Lanarkshire Council, Paul Jukes, said: “There is an element of risk for the council in committing the £10m, but we believe it is necessary.

“To do nothing with such a large site is simply not an option.”