Birkenhead Urban Village project receives multi-million pound boost

Proposals for a new urban village adjacent to Birkenhead town centre have been given a major multi million pound boost.

The Hind Street Urban Village project will ultimately see the development of around 1,500 new high quality homes plus commercial and green spaces over the next 10 to 15 years.

Also known as the Birkenhead Central Gateway, the Hind Street scheme is a key part of the wider regeneration plans being pursued by the council for Birkenhead and the wider east side of Wirral.

Leader of Wirral Council, Cllr Paul Stuart, said:

“On behalf of Wirral, I really welcome the grant funding of over £22m from the Strategic Investment Fund for Wirral’s Hind Street project from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCR CA).

“We are expecting positive news from Homes England any time now which together with this LCR CA investment will allow us to begin the vital infrastructure work that will signal the beginning of this vital housing and regeneration project for Wirral and Birkenhead.

“The Hind Street project is one of our major brownfield regeneration sites and it will be a model of urban living, well connected to public transport being so close to Birkenhead Central and Green Lane train stations, the new dock Branch Park, providing high quality open spaces, improved public realm and the creation of active travel routes.

“This is just one part of our regeneration strategy, which is focussed on delivering social, affordable, people-focused regeneration that reduces inequalities and creating jobs.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the LCR CA to release further funding for this and other vital projects for Wirral to deliver on our brownfield only Local Plan, which will deliver much needed housing in Wirral and play our part in contributing to the Governments housing targets.”

Birkenhead Urban Village — Credit: Ion Developments

A Full Business Case for Hind Street South area south was submitted requesting funding from Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) as well as Homes England (HE).

LCRCA has now agreed to approve grant funding of up to £22.359m from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS programme) to Wirral Council for Birkenhead Central Gateway (Hind Street) project.

This will help unlock the first phases of the development comprising of 10.9 ha of brownfield land intended to deliver 633 homes and 1,330sqm of commercial floorspace.

The council has partnered with Ion Property Developments Ltd (Ion) on the project and Ion have been commissioned to undertake Development Management services including the design of the scheme, the remediation and infrastructure works required and the submission of the planning application.

The development will include a package of remediation, infrastructure, public realm, and transport work and it is expected to start on site in 2025 subject to planning, and complete in 2027, at which point it is anticipated that the Hind Street North scheme will come forward, delivering a further (approximately) 800 homes, although further grant funding is likely to be required.

The next steps will see council completing a number of legal and contractual steps to secure the funding, as well as other requirements such as working with Cadent to ensure the gas infrastructure on the Hind Street site, part of which was a former gas works, is relocated.

Although the primary enabling works for Hind Street will be an important first step towards the future demolition of the flyovers, the process of demolition will not commence under this phase of work and is currently expected that a phased approach to minimise traffic disruption could start in 2027.