Ion’s £62m Earlsfield Park set for planning consent

Developer Ion and its partner the Knowsley Estate are set to secure planning approval for its 57-acre Earlsfield Park development in North Huyton featuring 40 acres of employment space alongside 160 homes.

The developer’s hybrid application was submitted in April, including a full application for housing and two speculative industrial units of 25,000 sq ft and 20,000 sq ft, alongside a petrol station, shop, and a pub; while the outline application includes a potential 284,000 sq ft of employment space.

Designed by Ryder Architecture, the scheme’s draft masterplan was approved by Knowsley Council last September, and the council is now set to approve the hybrid application for the site at a special planning meeting next Thursday.

Bellway will bring forward the homes on the site, and Ion managing director Steve Parry told Place North West in April that the receipts from the sale of the residential scheme, as well as the retail and leisure element, would be used to part-fund the infrastructure necessary to bring forward the employment space.

These speculative units will be targeted at a wide range of users including advanced manufacturing, logistics, office users, and R&D occupiers. Each of the two speculative units in the full application are expected to cost around £8m to build, while the residential development has a construction price tag of £16.5m and the pub and filling station have a combined cost of £6m.

For the outline application, the 284,000 sq ft of employment space is expected to cost £32m, meaning the total construction cost of the development off the M57 is around £62m.

The plans have been recommended for sign-off by Knowsley’s head of planning, subject to a Section 106 agreement.

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