Cityheart picked for Prescot regeneration
Knowsley Council has selected the Chester-based outfit to craft a new-look town centre by redeveloping the 90,000 sq ft retail complex the authority acquired in 2022.
Cityheart will enter into a 12-month exclusivity agreement with the council to draw up plans for the future of Prescot town centre, which will be anchored by a “high-quality town centre living offer”, according to a cabinet report.
The scheme, which will be guided by a masterplan drafted in 2016, would see parts of the shopping centre knocked down and 200 homes delivered.
Proposals for the new-look town centre are in the early stages of gestation and detail is limited. However, other uses aside from residential would feature within the development, as well as improvements to the public realm.
The project will aim to build on the success of the Shakespeare North Playhouse, which completed in 2022 and has attracted 240,000 visitors since.
Within the 12-month exclusivity period, Cityheart will work up a planning application for the scheme. The developer is no stranger to town centre regeneration and is currently delivering the overhaul of Wigan Galleries for the local council.
Greg Ball, development director from Cityheart, said: “We’re proud to be recommended to cabinet as the preferred partner for Knowsley Council to enter into an exclusivity period to secure investment and development opportunities at the Prescot Shopping Centre site.”
Wigan acquired the Galleries as part of its plans to drive investment and growth into the borough. Knowsley Council took a similar approach in Prescot, paying Groupe Geraud £1.3m for Prescot Shopping Centre in late 2022.
A report to the authority’s cabinet states that the shopping centre “continues to be unviable in its current form and will continue to place a financial burden on the council without further intervention”.
The exclusivity agreement with Cityheart is due to be signed off next week.
Knowsley Council said it would comment on the deal after the cabinet meeting.
We do not want any of prescot shopping center knock down for more houses.why can’t you just update the shops and put the rents on them down. Do not destroy our little shopping center with houses.
By Anonymous
Excellent idea, in following Wirral, Bootle and St Helens sending their residents to shop in Liverpool One and the Church Street – Bold Street catchment shopping centres.
Brilliant news, the Liverpool Echo and BBC Radio Merseyside have published the huge amount of vacancies in Liverpool shops.
Bah Humbug
By Anonymous
I wonder how well the Galleries scheme is going?? 😬
By Micro
What we need in Prescot are individual SME’s to include lovely upmarket shops (clothing, shoes etc). We have far to many bars, barber shops etc. Yes some housing but don’t overwhelm Prescot as there are plenty of new housing developments around Prescot now.
By Theresa
Prescot is already flooded with new houses. It is a small town. If this is to go ahead, will you also build into it another schoo and another health centre. It is all fine and dandy to build 200 new homes but you Councils are flooding our already crowded infrastricture
By Barbara
Typical of Knowsley council soon as they bought it it was destined to be housing the so called top earners don’t have the skills to do anything more than resedential
By Alan Nuttall
Prescot needs some decent shops, then people would go, there is nothing shop wise to appeal to anyone. More house in the town centre!!!!
By Edwina Mitchell
We could do with shops not house’s the high street will be a ghost town soon
By Anonymous
All this building/development your forgetting one thing needed,in order for revenue coming in!..It needs a BANK!..No Banks in Prescot! No Cash machines! How do people spend money?Since the last bank Halifax went,footfall has fallen ‘dramatically!’..I’ve noticed and I’ve been here 11years!..Get a Bank back here!
By Will
Petty knowsley council aren’t doing the same for Huyton village. Instead you’re destroying it with yet more restaurants and bars we don’t want or need. We need shops for our elderly. We have a huge rat problem not helped by more eateries.
By Jackie
We need more shops in Prescot. Time to go back to old fashioned values and small trading community based businesses. Prescot town centre used to hold the community together. Residents would meet up whilst shopping throughout the year. I remember small deli shops, bakers, butchers. Woolworths was a huge loss as they sold everything. Lennons supermarket, Safeway, and Kwik Save small supermarkets had a varied choice for the community to choose from. There are no DIY shops – no clothes shops. Most of all no banks the older community feel isolated and denies them social interaction. Please no more homes we need fruit and veg shops too. It was lovely especially at Christmas meeting friends, family, and neighbours buying their Christmas veg and little gifts. Please develop a community based shopping centre suitable to celebrate Prescot’s heritage for us. We all feel the same just ask us.
By Michel Marie Morley
How many more houses do you need to build it’s a shopping town we want not more houses typicall labour
By Colin parry
So many empty spaces for far too long in the centre. More leisure facilities required. how about B AND Q as this is a much required facility
By Kay
Knock down a perfectly good building- a disgrace.
Build more houses- a disgrace. Just what people need when visiting the theatre – ‘oh look let’s go look at some houses’.
Use it to attract people.
By D Carroll
Prescot town centre doesn’t need more houses. The shopping centre needs decent shops with low business rates but keeping the large amount of parking. Before Trsco was built Eccleston Street was a busy shopping centre
By Graham HORT
The heart went out of Prescot when the big retail park was built.
By Janice Johnson
We don’t need a few hundred more people adding to the already overpopulated town due to all the other new estates being built. Traffic is already horrendous. In the town centre we have hardly any banks left, no dentists, no sports centre or citizens advice bureau. Our library and museum and Post Office have already been stuffed into the in-shops from their original buildings and now where are they going to be relocated to? It’s disappointing.
By Anonymous
What about us that live in Chester St and William st will we be moved
By Julie fish
People’s shopping habits are changing. I don’t believe it’s a binary ‘shops or homes’ situation. Both can be done ie residential above shops.
But SME are the way forward now for places like Prescot. It’s about having a distinctive offer.
By Rye
The shopping centre is no longer fit for the requirements of modern day retail or leisure, so this is a great move. Would be great to see this developed out as multi-use development incorporating new leisure i.e. an enhanced front-facing museum/ library, gaming arcade, to add to the cultural anchor of the Shakespeare Theatre, and well designed terraced town houses that retain the human scale of the town centre. Much need for public open space, and play facilities to be incorporated into the scheme!
By Anonymous
Authors of these comments need to get real. It’s 2024 not 1952. The world has changed.
By Realist
Focussing on town centre residential is the wrong way to go. I agree that the Shopping Centre needs a remodel, but every effort should be made to secure an anchor store. Imagine the footfall if a Primark could be attracted, for example?
We also need to create an artisan quarter with low start-up rents to establish a USP for Prescot
By Prescotian
From the comments clearly lots of fondness of Prescot of yesteryear, but little recognition that there’s no appetite from retailers to occupy those shops because there’s little demand.
Despite “all the new houses” the place is still quiet but thankfully those new residents and visitors make sure it’s not dead like St Helens. More high density housing, with some housing is exactly what the areas needs…there’s loads of wasted space around the back of the shopping centre and indeed in the shopping centre. Ideally some flats above shops/bars/offices/restaurants would be great. But also a bit of a leap.
Tesco is already too big for its plot on the retail park. There may come a time when it wants the Home Bargains unit in the shopping centre… So don’t have some flex in the plans!
By DenseCity
Any plans to continue with the rejuvenation have to be welcome. However more parking facilities would be beneficial to bring in people to our small town centre. Maybe if the business rates were viable more retail shops could be attracted. When the only shops to buy clothes and shoes are charity shops it’s a bit dire!!
By Ruth Webster
Create an old fashioned community? How about raising your kids to respect old fashioned communities and stop shopping online.
Otherwise, why are they going to build them?
By Harsh Reality
How do rents in Prescot compare with Liverpool city centre?
By Cg
An effective shuttle bus service from the train station to the shopping centre would be welcome, as far as an olde world high street of independent shops is concerned that can happen to an extent but these days the big supermarkets and drive-to shopping centres rule so that won`t change much. I suppose Knowsley Council can`t win really if Prescot went upmarket there`d be complaints, while others would like it to be a bit more refined, let`s be grateful that the New Shakspeare Theatre has renewed peoples` focus on Prescot.
By Anonymous
Has the council not checked CityHeart’s track record for regen? Galleries? DD required. Same old, same old – foreign investment into regen looks good on paper but they won’t start until they get very attractive returns.
Smaller Local Authorities that fall for it every time – but you’d have thought Knowsley would have already learnt going with the Japanese at Huyton.
By Regen Professional
Seriously more houses !!!! We need more facilities to cope with the people that have already moved into the new estates
By Anonymous
Why do councils not exercise common sense rather than seeing £££ signs. No one wants extra houses there are enough and the doctors surgeries and schools aren’t increasing to keep up with the extra demand. People like having access to smaller local shops as opposed to walking 1/2hr down to a retail park with huge versions. I don’t know who hired town planners but they never seem very well educated in what the local residents want/need. They all must drive and be fit and healthy for now! It would be a different mentality if some of them had any conception of old age or disability and its challenges. I’m neither yet but I could do a way better job of town planning than you lot seem to. 😠
By Sue Hall
As someone said take the PR out of Prescot and what are you left with…. T.E.S.C.O
By Clare
@Sue Hall, the prices in local shops are one reason people go to the big supermarkets.
By Anonymous