Transforming Wirral Waters

Local Partnerships Unlocks £6M Funding to Jumpstart the UK’s Largest Housing Regeneration

In a rapidly evolving housing market, Wirral Council faced the challenge of meeting the Borough’s future housing needs while preserving its cherished green belt.

At the heart of this ambitious vision was Wirral Waters, the largest housing regeneration project in the UK, set to deliver 13,500 new homes along the River Mersey. However, despite initial planning approval, the project encountered significant roadblocks, threatening the realisation of this transformative development. Local Partnerships stepped in, providing strategic guidance and securing critical funding to unlock the project’s potential, ensuring that Wirral’s housing needs could be met without compromising the integrity of its landscape.

The challenge:

Wirral Council had ambitious plans to develop new housing in the Borough, to meet projected housing regeneration need for the future, including boosting the delivery of affordable homes.

At the centrepiece of housing plans for the Borough is Wirral Waters, the largest housing regeneration project in the country, including the development of 13,500 homes on the south bank of the River Mersey. Although planning permission had been granted, the scheme had stalled due to viability issues on the first phase. This in turn was placing significant pressure on the green belt in the Borough, as the Council set about developing a new Local Plan which needed to meet future housing needs.

The solution:

Local Partnerships assisted the transformation of the Borough through a number of interventions.

This included:

• Leading the development of a successful bid to Government under the Housing Infrastructure Fund programme, which secured £6m worth of funding to enable delivery of the first 1,100 homes at Wirral Waters and build momentum for the scheme.

• Assisting with the tripartite negotiations between Wirral Council, Homes England, and the private sector developers, to enable a mutually acceptable funding agreement to be signed, which enabled delivery while ensuring value for money for the public purse.

• Providing assurance to the Council on development of a business case which enabled the development of new homes on Phase 1 of Wirral Waters, on a leaseback basis.

• Developing a prospectus for investment in the Borough, which told the story of how development at Wirral Waters could benefit local areas such as Birkenhead through strategic housing-led regeneration of the Borough, ultimately drawing interest and support from Homes England.

• Developing a Housing Growth Strategy for the Borough, which identified the sites (in both public and private ownership) where housing delivery could be achieved.

• Assessing options for future affordable housing development, including consideration of various delivery vehicles, reopening the Housing Revenue Account, and partnerships with Registered Providers.

• Commissioning viability studies on key housing sites, to enable the Council to develop an appropriate phasing strategy for new development.

Lessons learned:

• The importance of honest and open dialogue between public and private sectors in order to ensure that new developments can be unlocked in a way which reflects both value for money for the public purse, and commercial interests of the private sector.

• The importance of ensuring that even the largest developments are rooted in the places in which they take place, in such a way that the benefits are felt by local people. This is likely to involve developing corridors and linkages, and removing barriers.

• The opportunities, through communicating an exciting, big picture vision for an area, to attract meaningful interest and investment from central Government agencies.

The impact:

We enabled Wirral Council to secure £6m worth of HIF grant. This funding enabled the first phase of 1,106 new properties to be developed as part of the overall scheme at Wirral Waters.

With 13,500 new properties being built, this is the largest housing regeneration scheme in the country.

We provided support to Wirral Council, developing a housing growth strategy which will enable the Council to deliver its ambitious housing growth target of over 900 homes per year over the next 15 years.