MORE than a dozen major projects in Merseyside and Cheshire were last night dealt a massive blow when their funding was cut.

The North West Development Agency revealed how it plans to cut £52m from its budget – by axing funding for more than 100 projects across the region.

All uncommitted projects will not receive NWDA funding in 2010 and there will be no new financial commitments in 2011 as the agency scales back its work ahead of its abolition in 2012.

The project to build a new £28m Everyman theatre in Liverpool will no longer be given funding of around £2.4m.

Chester Zoo’s £225m Natural Vision project dubbed “the Eden of the North” was expecting £40m from the agency which will no longer arrive.

Officials behind both projects last night insisted they would still go ahead and that other sources of funding were being sought and new ways of delivering the schemes were being looked at.

Steve Broomhead, chief executive of the NWDA, said: “The Everyman project is particularly disappointing for us as it was a legacy of the Capital of Culture.

“It is like a lot of projects that are having to seek alternative funding sources – it’s not going to be easy.”

Other projects in Liverpool including training programmes at Getrag Ford and Jaguar Land Rover in Halewood will not be funded by the agency.