Chalon Way demolition will 'kick-start' canal transformation

Labour councillors gave the green light to the plans at its cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Cabinet agreed to use £1m from the Government’s town deal accelerated fund to support the demolition of Chalon Way Car Park, long viewed as an eye sore.

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A report from Lisa Harris, executive director of place, says the move would act as a “statement of intent” and create a “future development opportunity”.

She adds that the area around Sankey Canal has the potential to be “enhanced as part of future regeneration proposals”.

Welcoming the plans, council leader David Baines said: “We are very lucky in St Helens to have a canal. We’re one of the few towns around that have got a canal in the heart of the town centre.

“The problem we’ve got at the moment is no-one can see it and some people don’t even know it’s there because it’s blocked on all sides.

“We’ve got the fantastic World of Glass, we’ve got the fantastic canal-side café, and that’s the closest you can get to it really in a nice environment.

“We want to change that, so doing this will open up that whole area and kick-start the regeneration of that part of St Helens town centre.”

St Helens Borough Council's cabinet have agreed to demolish Chalon Way multi-storey car park

The area around Sankey Canal has long been seen as a key site in the council’s regeneration plans.

Opened in 1757, it pre-dates the Bridgewater Canal by four years, built primarily to carry coal from the Lancashire coalfields to the growing port of Liverpool.

Officially closed in 1963, much of the canal remains in water but navigation is severed by the M62 motorway, several roads, a footbridge and railway line.

In 2017 the council, under the leadership of Barrie Grunewald, unveiled ambitious plans for a ‘Albert Dock-style’ transformation around the waterfront, with bars and restaurants on lower levels and canal-side apartments above.

These plans never got off the ground, however, but in March this year, the council agreed initial terms to enter into a long-term partnership with the English Cities Fund, paving the way for the regeneration of the whole borough.

Cllr Baines said at the time the deal represented a “fresh start” for St Helens and the council.

He also insisted that he did not want to share artists’ impressions or CGI images of possible developments – an apparent acknowledgement of the false dawns of the past – saying he would only release images of “deliverable projects that will happen”.

In July, the council received £1 million from central Government to help it fast track plans that could unlock up to £25 million to boost economic growth, as part of its £3.6 billion Towns Fund.

The grant is for capital projects, with the Government particularly encouraging projects that lay the foundation for future investment, that can be delivered this financial year, as the funds must be expended by March 31, 2021.

This CGI image of what St Helens town centre could look like was unveiled in 2017 but those plans never got off the ground

Cllr Richard McCauley, cabinet member for regeneration and planning, said the demolition of Chalon Way Car Park was deemed to be the appropriate scheme given the “challenging” timescales.

He said: “In the tight timescales given by Government, the challenge was identifying a scheme that could be delivered by March next year.

“The challenging delivery timescales meant that some of the things we would like to do were just not possible in the time, therefore we have decided that the most appropriate scheme is the demolition of the Chalon Way Car Park to create a new waterfront site for development.

“The demolition will bring important, historic canal waterfront site into the town centre, creating a catalyst for commercial, leisure or housing development, and is consistent with our heritage strategy and ambitions for the canal.”

The initial estimate for the cost of demolition is £921,000. However, in the event that the project exceeds the £1 million given by Government, cabinet agreed to earmark £100,000 from its growth reserve to cover any cost increase and risks associated with the project.

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Cabinet also set out how it plans to spend £1 million from the Liverpool City Region town centre fund support the recovery of St Helens and Earlestown town centres post-Covid.

This includes the delivery of seven projects, with half of the £1 million going towards a small business grant scheme aimed at providing up to £5,000 to support businesses to “diversify, grow and make necessary adaptive changes to continue to trade through the Covid pandemic”.