Modular housebuilder Starship will take on the £4m Egerton Village project in Wirral Waters, featuring restaurants, shops and art studios, if it can raise the finance. Tony McDonough reports
Modular housebuilder Starship is to make the planned £4m Egerton Village scheme at Wirral Waters a reality with backing from Wirral Council.
A report to the council’s regeneration committee suggests a grant covering 40% of the cost of the project, featuring restaurants, shops and art studios, be handed to Starship on condition it can raise the remaining 60% itself.
Peel L&P, owner of Liverpool Waters, secured planning consent for Egerton Village in 2019. It has been designed to service the growing number of homes being built in the East Float neighbourhood.
Council support for the development would come from the Wirral Waters Investment Fund. It has already allocated funding for Egerton Village to Peel but the council believes transferring that to Starship would free up development capacity at Peel.
The council document says: “Egerton Village will serve existing and new businesses, residents and visitors by providing key amenity space including an appropriate hospitality offer as well as providing retail, studio and workspace accommodation.
“It will provide a focal point for arrival and orientation around Wirral Waters. The project will deliver approximately 14,672 sq ft of new commercial floorspace adjacent to the Hythe office building on Tower Road.”
It adds: ““Until Starship puts forward a viable business plan and sets out its external financing arrangements to meet the 60% of the cost not funded by the council, it cannot be said that the novation of the grant funding agreement would be lawful.”
Starship was formed following the acquisition and merger of several existing property development and construction businesses. It is backed by a private investment fund and has delivered more than £75m of residential projects across the UK.
It is at the forefront of the modern methods of construction revolution in UK housebuilding which sees homes produced in factories and then assembled on site.
In 2021 it completed four factory-built modular homes in New Ferry in Wirral. These zero-carbon properties have now been handed over to housing association Magenta Living. In 2022 Starship relocated from Deeside to Wirral Waters.
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Dave Dargan, chief executive of Starship, told Place North West: “We are really pleased to be bringing forward this fantastic project right in the heart of Wirral Waters, providing high-quality community, retail and hospitality space.
“Egerton Village will become a focal point at Wirral Waters, being one of the first retail and hospitality projects and providing a place for people to meet and socialise right in the heart of one of Wirral’s newest communities.”