Located 2km from St Helens town centre, Moss Nook is a large, complex brownfield site and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority is offering £2m for remediation work. Tony McDonough reports
Up to 900 new homes could be built on a former industrial site in Merseyside as Liverpool City Region Combined Authority offers more than £2m to begin remediation work.
Located 2km from St Helens town centre, Moss Nook is a large, complex brownfield site, historically used for mining and a number of industrial processes. It has been identified as a site ideal for the development of badly-needed new homes.
The Combined Authority’s support of up to £2.05m will be used to facilitate the remediation and infrastructure work necessary for the first phase of the site’s development, which would comprise an initial 240 new homes.
The funding has been awarded to Harworth Estates Investments, which specialises in the assembly and remediation of complex, former industrial sites, preparing the land for onward sale in the form of serviced plots for construction by housing developers.
Once the remediation work is complete, Harworth will look to sell the land to a housing developer. Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said: “We have a very clear policy that we should look at brownfield sites first when building the homes that we need in our city region.
“As land previously used for mining and other industrial processes, and located close to the centre of St Helens, Moss Nook is exactly the type of brownfield site we should be developing and I’m pleased that our £2m funding will enable this project to happen.”
The project has the full backing of the leader of St Helens Council, David Baines, who said the site had been derelict for a number of years and had been plagued by anti-social behaviour.
Matthew Whiteley, development manager at Harworth Group, added: “Moss Nook is Harworth’s first residential development in the North West following our purchase of the site in 2018 and we’re keen to exercise our technical skill in bringing forward this complex site as we have done on other former industrial land.
“This grant provides the impetus to bring forward the site’s first phase to the market later this year and will finally begin to fulfil the potential of one of the region’s largest single residential developments following years of stalled development.”