A DOOMED plan to base pupils in the heart of Liverpool’s Innovation Park could be revived as part of a Government bid to create “business neighbourhoods”.
Liverpool Council wanted to move two Church of England secondary schools – Sefton Park’s St Hilda’s and city-centre based Archbishop Blanch – into the iconic Littlewoods building at Edge Lane’s Innovation Park in a £45m scheme.
But the project bit the dust in July last year when Government axed the Building Schools For The Future scheme, which would have seen 26 city schools transformed.
When the Innovation Park schools scheme was launched by the council, it was championed as a way to boost the regeneration of the area and dovetail the schools’ technology and enterprise specialisms. Now plans to mix business and education on the site could be restored as part of a new Government initiative to establish “Business Neighbourhood Frontrunners”.
The scheme will see businesses and community groups formulate development blueprints without the need for individual aspects to go through the often painstaking council planning process.
The “neighbourhood plans” may still need overall council approval and would be subject to a public vote via a local referendum.
The Government has approved the Innovation Park as one of eight pilots for the scheme after submissions by Liverpool Chamber of Commerce.
Although negotiations with the council are ongoing and finer points of the scheme are to be established, the blueprint – spearheaded by site owner Space NW – is “a plan to develop an education campus, create amenities to attract businesses that will also benefit local people and respond more quickly to opportunities to grow and expand existing facilities”.
