KEY sites for attracting investment and jobs to Merseyside have been saved from a damaging £50m “fire sale” by a Government U-turn.

The assets of the doomed Northwest Development Agency (NWDA), including the iconic Littlewoods building and Wavertree Technology Park, will be transferred to the Homes and Community Agency (HCA).

The move, which follows widespread protests, is a significant rethink from the Government’s insistence last year that assets would be sold to “maximise receipts” and help with “national deficit reduction”.

Crucially, local political and business leaders will “influence the development of local assets”, by sitting on committees with the HCA.

That represents a major victory for the NWDA, which urged ministers not to switch responsibility to officials in distant Whitehall.

Among other sites likely to be transferred to the HCA on September 19 are:

Liverpool Digital;

Mann Island;

Estuary Commerce Park, in Speke;

National Biomanufacturing Centre, in Speke.

Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus, near Warrington, will be transferred to the Government as an “asset of strategic national importance”.