Green light for reworked Mersey Reach
Chancerygate’s refreshed plans for industrial space at the former Peerless refinery site on Dunnings Bridge Road have secured the go-ahead from Sefton’s planning committee.
The application is for three blocks of commercial space totalling around 102,445 sq ft factoring in mezzanine spaces. These will be split into 12 units in total, ranging from 4,000 sq ft to 29,000 sq ft.
Chancerygate is already on site with phase one of the development, having secured consent in 2017 for a filling station and drive-thru coffee shop along with six industrial units.
The buildings put forward here will be a substitute for the largest two of those units, with the proposals representing an increase of around 7,000 sq ft on the pair of buildings approved in the 2017 consent. Units will range from 4,000 sq ft to 29,000 sq ft.
Plans were lodged by Savills on behalf of Chancerygate (Aintree) and were considered at committee on 9 December, where a resolution to approve was given in line with officer recommendation.
Of the four units in phase one, which totals around 115,000 sq ft, two were let to historic Bootle-based precision blade manufacturer Hardy UK and builders’ merchants Selco earlier this year – a further unit is under offer, according to council documents. Chancerygate has also sold a two-acre plot to Euro Garages for a filling station, to open next year.
The site, one of Sefton’s strategic employment sites in the Dunnigs Bridge Road area, formerly housed an edible oils refinery, which was closed and cleared in the 1990s, remaining vacant since apart from a plot given over to a Bestway warehouse. Furniture giant Ikea initiated plans to build a store at the site in the early 2000s but withdrew its plans in 2005.
Mike Walker, Chancerygate’s development director and head of the Warrington office, said: “We are pleased to have been granted planning permission to expand Mersey Reach having been delighted with the success of the scheme’s first phase.
“This permission allows us to redesign our plans for phase two to take advantage of the demand for urban logistics space in the North West. We are eager to begin speculative development of the scheme’s second phase in the first quarter of next year.”
Agents for the scheme are CBRE and B8 Real Estate.
Chancerygate’s professional team includes architect Fletcher Rae, Cudd Bentley Consulting, Hydrock, CPUK, TPM Landscape and Rachel Hacking Ecology.

The application site is in the foreground, with the phase one buildings alongside
Bring IKEA we need something like that.
By J Currie