£12m work under way

Jan 30 2008 by Tony McDonough, Liverpool Daily Post

WORK has started on the £12m first phase of an office scheme in St Helens.

The space is being created at Mere Grange business park, in a joint venture between developers Langtree and national regeneration agency English Partnerships.

Building work has begun on Phase One, which will provide about 130 jobs when completed in June.

Phase One will provide 60,000sq ft of office space in 10 units of between 3,300sq ft and 9,700sq ft.

Further phases will be developed, totalling 300,000sq ft and leading to a total of around 650 jobs and about £50m investment by 2015. Eventually, the park will cover 30 acres.

The 30-acre business park will provide commercial space for local companies to grow and to help attract new businesses to St Helens.

Mere Grange, formerly known as Lea Green Farm West, has been reclaimed using money from English Partnerships’ National Coalfields Programme and the EU and Merseyside Objective 1 programme. Stephen Barnes, Langtree’s group development director, said: “We are very pleased to have begun work on this important business park in our home town.

“There is a severe shortage of high-quality office accommodation in St Helens, and local businesses may have to move away if they want to grow.

“Mere Grange will provide the space for service sector businesses to expand and also attract new companies.”

The site is along the A570, which links to the M62, and is close to existing industrial sites, south of St Helens town centre.

Eliot Lewis-Ward, English Partnerships’ area director for Merseyside and Cheshire, said: “English Partnerships is helping to create quality jobs in a town that has been hit hard by the loss of manu- facturing industries.”

tonymcdonough