Sefton’s Bootle Strand revamp set for £7.1m boost
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority will vote next week on awarding a grant from its Strategic Investment Fund to get the long-awaited project off the ground.
The £7.1m grant would go towards enabling works and infrastructure for the £30m first phase of work on Sefton Council’s vision for the 1960s Bootle Strand shopping centre.
Sefton Council Leader Cllr Marion Atkinson described the potential grant award as “a vital step in delivering the ambitious vision we have for Bootle town centre.”
She added: “The Strand has been at the heart of our community for generations and these plans will ensure it continues to play that role for decades to come.”.
This first phase of the project includes the refurbishment of the former Marks & Spencer into a lifestyle destination with 7,700 sq ft of space for food and beverage operators; 5,300 sq ft for exhibitions; and 14,300 sq ft for community use.
Also on the agenda: creating Mons Square through a partial demolition of the shopping complex and improving the links to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the popular events venue Salt & Tar.
Demolition work is already underway, having started in June. It is due to complete in December, which will allow for main contractor Vinci to commence construction in spring 2026. If this timeline proceeds as planned, the first phase of the Strand redevelopment will complete in 2027.
The LCRCA grant would be used for post-demolition remedial works, relocating existing tenants at the shopping centre, installing new public toilets in the vicinity, refurbishing the retained area of the Strand, and conducting fit-outs for local independent traders in that refurbished space.
A re-envisioned Strand has been in the works since 2017. The project has secured £20m in capital funding from central government, with the local authority set to investing an additional £10m for its first phase.
Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram explained why the combined authority is looking to support the project.
“This is about much more than bricks and mortar – it’s about giving Bootle the vibrant, thriving town centre the community deserves,” he said.
“By working with Sefton Council, we’re helping to unlock the Strand’s potential, attract new businesses and visitors, and create a place that local people can be proud of once again.”
The project team for the Strand scheme includes OPEN, Summers-Inman, WSP, and Avison Young. K2 Architects is leading on the design for the broader masterplan. You can view the first phase’s approved planning application by searching reference number DC/2024/01890 on Sefton Council’s planning portal.
Its good news, but wonder why they didn’t build more flats to help housing supply and increase local footfall
By GetItBuilt!
It is a really interesting case study. The Council paid £32.5m for this back in 2017, well over the odds in a falling market. Their main strategy is simply to demolish a big chunk of it at the same time all the office users and in turn footfall is disappearing. It never seems to be referenced in the press but not buying in the former HMRC offices above the Strand is a catastrophic error.
By Anonymous
What about the peir
By Anonymous
“well over the odds for a failing market”
But they weren’t buying it for the market. Also, not everything needs to be about pure profit.
We spent what would be now hundreds of billions after WW2 to better the country because we needed it, now everything needs beam counters.
No wonder China steam rolls ahead, they just get it done, like we used to.
By Anonymous
The Sandgrounders will moan about their pier etc But it’s Bootle and Seaforth that rake in Seftons revenue and contend with the pollution that comes with it. South Sefton also deserves some credit and funding.
By Bill
Yes, agree entirely with Anon Sept 19, 1.26pm. Given Sefton paid *so* far over the odds for the Strand, possibly £25 million, it’s inexplicable they didn’t also take on the Triad office block looming over it. If anything happens, it will be turned into really really awful flats like the old HSE blocks down the road.
Sefton has already been bailed out once with Towns Fund money, and keeps up the pretence that branding a cleared demolition site as Salt’nTar makes it a regeneration project, but this is really just a money pit, that the useless Steve is now throwing more into in the absence of any useful economic strategy from the CA.
By Stanley Toad
Another waste of money for a building that Sefton Council paid 38million to buy and that has slowly fallen in to decay. What is it worth now? 7million? Maybe less. Typical Sefton. Anything for Bootle
By John Mckechnie
They should use some of the money to combat the companies producing the foul smells around the strand area
By Anonymous