Details of how Liverpool’s Investment Zone will seek to create 8,000 jobs and ‘save lives across the world’ have been unveiled.
The zone was launched by the UK Government in July last year to focus on life sciences and potentially unlock up to £320m of private investment.
At the time, the government said that Liverpool, Runcorn, St. Helens, Maghull and Prescot would benefit from more than 4,000 new jobs over the next five years.
In December 2023, funding for Liverpool City Region’s Life Science Investment Zone was doubled to £160m and its benefits extended to 10 years.
Now the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has outlined 21 projects through a new prospectus which will “create new hi-tech facilities, provide business and innovation support and train the next generation of talent”.
Major developments are proposed at Maghull Health Park, St Helens Manufacturing and Innovation Campus, Earlsfield Park Knowsley, Sci-Tech Daresbury and Knowledge Quarter Liverpool, where two new buildings will provide additional laboratory space to boost the city region’s infection innovation capabilities.
Other projects will “drive breakthroughs” in children’s health, mental health, vaccine production, therapeutics and the use of data and AI to “help people lead healthier lives”.
The combined authority added that the zone has the potential to deliver £800m of public and private investment.
Three Investment Zone tax sites at Maghull Health Park, St Helens Manufacturing and Innovation Campus and Sci-Tech Daresbury will offer financial benefits to expanding or relocating businesses, while Halton and St Helens borough councils will be able to retain business rates on new properties to help pay for further developments.
The prospectus comes after it was announced in last week’s Budget that AstraZeneca is to invest £450m at its manufacturing site in Speke, Liverpool, for the research, development, and manufacture of vaccines.
Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram, said: “With up to £800m of investment and thousands of quality, high skilled jobs on offer, the Liverpool City Region Innovation Zone is an important tool in our arsenal to position our area at the head of UK science and innovation.
“But in the Liverpool City Region, we’re proud to do things differently. Throughout the development of our Innovation Zone, I have been clear that any investment in our area must go further than purely financial incentives.
“I want to use our status as a force for good, to connect our residents up to secure, well-paid jobs and training opportunities, and attract transformational investment into our communities.
“Becoming an innovation superpower is a lofty ambition – but I firmly believe that, if anywhere has the potential to achieve it, then it is the Liverpool City Region.”
Projects planned as part of the Investment Zone include:
HEMISPHERE One and Two in Paddington Village, Liverpool City Council’s flagship regeneration scheme in the Knowledge Quarter.
Funding will enable the expansion of the University of Liverpool’s world-first Centre of Excellence for Long-acting Therapeutics (CELT) and the Civic HealthTech Innovation Zone (CHI-Zone), which will spearhead the use of AI to transform health and social care. The Pandemic Institute will also continue to progress its plans to tackle emerging infections and pandemic threats.
New high-containment Category Three labs fitted with robotics and AI technology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine for use by the Infection Innovation Consortium: iiCON, a £260m programme that works with more than 800 companies worldwide.
Major expansion of Sci-Tech Daresbury. The Investment Zone will help deliver a new laboratory and new office building to accommodate further growth on the north of England’s only national science and innovation campus. The zone will help Sci-Tech Daresbury towards plans to increase its workforce from 2,000 to around 10,000 over the next 15-20 years.
A Mental Health Digital Research Centre at Mersey Care’s 42-hectare Maghull Health Park, which is home to Europe’s largest concentration of complex secure mental health services and leading clinical excellence for serious mental illness. Mersey Care’s expansion plans are expected to create 1,270 new jobs.
St Helens Manufacturing and Innovation Campus. The £500m project will redevelop land formerly used by the glass industry to expand the area’s manufacturing and innovation capabilities. It has the potential to create more than 1,000 new jobs.
Other projects are located at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Earlsfield Park, Knowsley and the Speke Pharma Cluster, where Investment Zone funding is set to support TriRx’s £10m investment to enhance its capabilities to manufacture monoclonal antibodies.
University of Liverpool vice chancellor Professor Tim Jones added: “We are a global University, delivering world-leading research but with a keen focus on our civic role in the city and wider region.
“We look forward to playing a vital role in the delivery of these ambitious plans which will result in meaningful research that will have real-world impact.”
Liverpool City Region portfolio holder for digital and innovation Cllr Paul Stuart said: “The Investment Zone has the potential to transform the city region’s health and life sciences sector by growing our world-leading strengths and tapping into our innovative and entrepreneurial spirit.
“It will also provide huge opportunities to local people. The projects are both ambitious and imaginative and will help ensure the benefits are felt far and wide.”