“WE ARE writing to put on record our strong support for the proposed development of Liverpool’s new Royal Hospital and the crucially important biocampus project.

“The biocampus will be a national centre of excellence located on the site of the existing Royal Hospital and is a key project in Liverpool city region’s recently published Draft Knowledge Economy Plan.

“This development will build on Liverpool’s cluster of world-class health and bio-medical research assets at the University of Liverpool, the Royal Hospital and the School of Tropical Medicine to create a hub for commercial research and bio-manufacturing facilities that will be worth over £1bn to the local economy over 10 years.

“The biocampus is an essential piece of economic infrastructure with a potential economic impact comparable with the Liverpool One development.

“It is absolutely critical for Liverpool’s future we create a prosperous and internationally competitive private sector economy. The project is one of our biggest opportunities to reduce our dependency on public sector employment.

“It is a chance to build our future economy on our unique knowledge assets.

“For this reason, we are calling on those sponsoring the ongoing legal challenge to the Royal and biocampus not to jeopardise the city’s economic future at a time when our recovery could be threatened by large scale cuts in public sector spending. Their challenge threatens not only a vitally important new hospital, but also puts at risk tens of thousands of new jobs in construction, research and bio-sciences.

“There is no other mechanism available to fund or deliver these projects.

“There is now a real opportunity for the protesters to act with honour and responsibility in the interests of the city. At a time of profound economic uncertainty, we simply cannot sacrifice a project of this magnitude.”