PLANS for the first phase of a huge project which aims to turn Liverpool into a global centre for life sciences research has been submitted to the city council.

It is hoped the Liverpool BioInnovation Centre will start the influx of 5,000 scientists and technology experts to work on the fringe of the city centre.

Supporters of the scheme believe it is as vital to the future prosperity of the region as Peel’s £5.5bn Liverpool Waters skyscraper scheme to regenerate the city’s northern docklands.

The £28m centre is designed to be the first step towards the creation of a “BioCampus” that could eventually place Liverpool alongside Boston and Singapore as a leading international centre for the Life Sciences. It will sit alongside the planned new £451m Royal Liverpool Hospital – on the old Royal site. The five-storey BioInnovation Centre is planned for a site just down the hill from the current Royal Liverpool Hospital at the junction of Prescot Road and Daulby Street.

It will create 70,000 sq ft of state-of-the-art commercial scale laboratory space – the equivalent of 23 tennis courts.

And it can be built before the new Royal is ready. If the BioInnovation centre wins planning permission, it is expected to open in 2014, two years ahead of the new hospital.

The BioCampus is being driven by a partnership between the Royal, the University of Liverpool and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

The campus would reinforce the Royal’s links with the University of Liverpool and drug companies, encouraging innovation and investment.

It is estimated that the scientists who would work in the BioCampus would have an average salary of £70,000, providing a huge boost to the region’s economy.