Liverpool City Council is committing £8.2m — almost half its regional Growing Places Fund — to kick-start nine stalled private development projects across Merseyside.
The nine projects are situated in the centre of Liverpool, and at Halton, Knowsley and the Wirral. All have either been granted planning consent or have stalled through lack of finance for preparation or ground work. “This funding will provide a vital financial boost for the city and the wider region,” said Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson.
“It will enable projects which, for one reason or another, have stalled or failed to go ahead and will result in the creation of new jobs and, ultimately, economic growth which is invaluable in the current financial climate,” he added.
The kick-starter package includes several high profile schemes, among them a Stonebridge Cross warehouse development, allegedly a future distribution hub for on-line retailer Amazon, and which it’s claimed will create as many as 1,000 jobs in the Croxteth area. Planning permission was given for the scheme and it’s hoped a £1m cash injection will now allow it to proceed. Although it admitted it had looked at the Liverpool site Amazon has repeatedly denied any connection to the development.
The eight other projects receiving cash are:
The Tratos production plant, one of Europe’s major manufacturing sites for electrical, electronic and fibre optic cables, was visited recently by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg who welcomed news of an additional £3m company investment in the site. The extra £1m from the Liverpool authority should allow the factory extension to start this summer and secure 100 jobs.
Possibly the most controversial scheme is Liverpool-based Castlewood Property Management’s plan to turn the 11-storey Martins Bank building on Water Street into a 138-bed, five-star hotel. The project, first mooted three years ago, was criticised by architectural groups for “inappropriate” changes to the Herbert Rowse-designed building, considered to be one of the city’s finest examples of inter-war architecture. Since planning approval was granted no work has started.
Not everyone is in favour of the cash injection, which has yet to be rubber-stamped by the council’s cabinet. “If you are investing with the hope of creating jobs, it is only the private sector that can do that, and it’s entirely right that the money go into private sector companies,” commented the city’s Liberal Democrat leader, Richard Kemp.
“The question I would ask though, is whether council officials can understand what the private sector does, and whether they honestly have the skills to appraise the needs of these projects.”
Previous Post
KFC to Invest £21 Million in Five Year Expansion Plan
