• £8.9m to enable home building at seven city region brownfield sites 
• Investment part of Mayor Steve Rotheram’s plans to tackle housing crisis 
• £60m Brownfield Land Fund project will unlock land to build at least 4,000 new homes 

The former Alder Hey Hospital and Bootle High School sites and a disused brickworks in St Helens are among seven projects to share £8.9m in funding to enable construction of 671 new homes. 

The seven schemes have been approved as part of the Mayor’s plans to tackle the housing crisis, which will see a total of £60m invested from the region’s Brownfield Land Fund to prepare previously developed land for at least 4,000 new homes. 

Pictured (l to r): Finch Gardens with Cllr Graham Morgan, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s Portfolio Holder for Housing and Spatial Planning, Tracy Gordon, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Lead Officer – Housing Partnerships, Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Sharon Morris, Riverside Head of Sales, Cllr Liam Robinson, Leader of Liverpool City Council.

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said: 

“I want everyone in our area to have access to high-quality, affordable homes. Yet for too many ordinary people, home ownership feels out of reach, and affordable rents are in increasingly short supply. 

“That’s why I am determined to turbocharge a new generation of housebuilding – including a return, at long last, to council housing in the region in addition to funding the aspirational homes that are so desperately needed. 

“Since I was elected, we have seen more than 30,000 homes built in the region with a brownfield first approach – turning once-forgotten areas back into thriving communities while protecting our precious green spaces. 

“Our £60m Brownfield Land Fund will help to deliver at least 4,000 new homes, while we have spent more than £100m improving the energy efficiency of 10,000 existing homes, helping to reduce energy bills and reducing emissions”  

Details of the seven latest developments to be made possible with support from the Brownfield Land Fund are: 

• The former Ibstock Brickworks site on Chester Lane, St Helens, which received £2,945,000 to enable 243 new homes. 
• Springfield Gardens development of 98 new homes on the former Alder Hey hospital site in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, which was allocated £1,470,000 
• Plus Dane Housing’s scheme to create 104 homes on the site of the old Johnsons Building, Bootle, which was awarded £1,294,000
• Halton Housing’s project to build 66 homes on a derelict site on the High Street, Runcorn, which was awarded £1,124,000 
• Onward Homes’ development of 67 affordable rented homes on the site of a former bus depot on Hawthorne Road, Sefton, which was awarded £1,005,000 
• Sandway Homes’ development of the former Bootle High School site leading to the construction of 53 new homes, which was allocated £795,000 to address viability constraints 
• Torus Housing’s project to build 40 homes, completing the stalled Quadrant apartment development in Hoylake, which received a grant of £299,000 

Since the original Brownfield Land Fund was announced in July 2020, the Combined Authority has already agreed plans to invest £41.5m in 29 projects across the Liverpool City Region, which will deliver 3,371 homes. 

Last September, the Mayor visited a development of 105 new two, three and four-bedroom homes at Finch Gardens in Dovecot – the first to be built thanks to the £60m Brownfield Land Fund. 

In planning terms, any land that has been previously developed is classed as brownfield. In the Liverpool City Region, much of this land is derelict and formerly industrial so must be cleaned up before it can be redeveloped. 

The Combined Authority investment will be used for site remediation and other measures required to make the land ready for development. 

In total, 700 brownfield sites have been identified across the six local authorities of the Liverpool City Region. The updated brownfield register identifies 1,813 acres of brownfield sites which could provide space for more than 42,000 homes, if remediated. 

Councillor Graham Morgan, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Cabinet Member for Housing and Regeneration, said: 

“We are working hard to tackle the housing shortage and ensure that people right across our area have a great choice of high-quality homes. Building on brownfield sites is key to making that happen – there are around 700 of them with enough space to build 42,000 homes. 

“The developments in this latest round of funding approvals are a great mix of schemes offering a wide range of different housing types.  We need to ensure that, across our city region, we are building homes to suit everybody.”