Member Article

North Liverpool regeneration project work set to start by Spring

Work is due to start on the long awaited regeneration of north Liverpool this spring. The £150m scheme, known as Project Jennifer, is being driven by St Modwen, which has a regional base in Warrington, in partnership with Liverpool City Council. It is estimated that Project Jennifer, focused on the Great Homer Street area of Everton will create 1,000 jobs. The new flagship Sainsbury’s will be the largest supermarket in the city, according to the developer – just part of the scheme’s 80,000 sq ft of new retail space. The project will also provide around 900 free customer car parking spaces, a petrol filling station, transport improvements to Great Homer Street and enhanced links to Everton Park, together with a new link road between Great Homer Street and Scotland Road. Paul Batho, projects director at St Modwen, said: “We are delighted that this scheme, which is both needed and wanted by the local community, is moving forwards towards actual delivery on site. “We are committed to delivering this scheme and will be working hard to finalise the details over the next few months as we build-up to starting on site.” Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Cllr Malcolm Kennedy, added: “Project Jennifer is an important progression for North Liverpool and will regenerate an area in real need of investment and development. “We are looking forward to seeing this vital scheme delivered, which will make a massive difference to people’s lives – breathing new life into the area, providing first-class facilities and creating new jobs.” The scheme was originally conceived by the council in 2003 to regenerate the area and provide a range of new retail and community facilities. St Modwen had admitted that progress has been slow, first of all affected by a dispute with supermarket giant Tesco which was lined up as the scheme’s original flagship store. It was then affected by the economic downturn which began in 2007. However, after a public inquiry into the project, held at the city’s Adelphi Hotel last year, the developers had aimed at putting ‘spades in the ground’ early in 2014.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .