Liverpool outlines intentions for £80m investment zone cash

A 126,000 sq ft lab complex at Paddington Village is proposed, while the government’s decision to make the city region a life science hotbed could also lead to a 50,000 sq ft letting at the development’s Hemisphere building. 

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has published a report outlining how it plans to spend the £80m government gave it to set up its investment zone, with Paddington Village within the city’s Knowledge Quarter acting as the fulcrum. 

Focusing on life sciences and the pharmaceutical industry, the investment zone will encompass Liverpool, Runcorn, St Helens, Maghull, and Prescot, and could leverage £320m of private sector investment over the next five years and “make Liverpool a pharmaceutical production superpower”, according to Whitehall.  

A new building for Paddington Village 

Compound Labs, a 126,000 sq ft development at Paddington Village is one of the major projects proposed to kick off the investment zone. 

The scheme, which will benefit from more than £20m, would provide a 43,000 sq ft home for the University of Liverpool’s Centre of Excellence for Long-Lasting Therapeutics. 

The remaining space would be used as commercial lab and office space for chemistry, pharmaceuticals, robotics, and life-sciences firms, according to the report. 

Compound Labs would be built at Paddington Village next to the Spine and the proposed Hemisphere office and lab building. 

Hemisphere up and running 

Liverpool city region’s investment zone status has provided a boost to Hemisphere in the shape of one of the largest lettings in Liverpool in recent years. 

The 116,000 sq ft building will be home to The Pandemic Preparedness and Response Facility, which is due to sign for 50,000 sq ft of lab space within Hemisphere, according to the report. 

The organisation will conduct clinical and academic research and develop new diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics against infectious disease threats. 

Also within the Knowledge Quarter, the city region wants to spend just shy of £5m on the LYVA Labs Incubator and Accelerator. This will provide space and support for startups in the life sciences sector. 

Outside the city centre 

Outside of the city centre, the combined authority is planning to spend £9.5m on the next phase of labs at SciTech Daresbury in Halton. Two buildings totalling 83,000 sq ft are planned. 

In Maghull, Mersey Care is hoping to be given more than £20m from the investment zone pot to redevelop its 100-acre Ashworth Hospital and former HMP Kennet site as an international centre of excellence for mental health. 

IICON, a consortium led by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is due to secure £10m to develop “commercially facing robotics, AI, and machine learning capabilities to develop new infection therapeutics”, the report states. 

Almost £12m could support the creation of CHI-zone, an “innovation campus and LCR-wide network of NHS and community sites ready to research, develop, evaluate, and optimise HealthTech”, according to the report. This is aimed at improving care for patients. 

£15m is earmarked to go towards the redevelopment of Pilkington’s former Watson Street Works in St Helens into a manufacturing and innovation campus. The scheme could generate £200m of private sector investment and create 1,350 job opportunities. 

Earlsfield Park, a 30-acre employment site in Knowsley, could get £4m of investment zone funding. 

To learn more about how the life sciences sector is growing in the North West, book to attend Place North West’s Labs of the Future conference in November.