£14 Million Funding Boost for Prescot Town Centre Theatre & Transport Links

By on Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Prescot will receive an estimated £14 million from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, it was announced last week.

Some of the pot will go towards the new Shakespeare North theatre and college, while other earmarked projects include improvements to Eccleston Street and a new lighting scheme to illuminate the 17th-century Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Prescot’s parish church.

Other money will enhance the town’s transport network, with new lifts and increased parking facilities at Prescot Rail Station, and a new pedestrian and cycle path with signage, connecting the station to the centre of the town.

According to Knowsley Council, the new Shakespeare North Playhouse will “create 20 new permanent full time jobs and around 175 full time jobs across the region and 185 temporary construction jobs.”

Knowsley Council has provided £6 million towards the theatre, while the government has pledged £5 million. Some of the overall bill, upwards of £20 million, will be paid for by private donors.

Work on the site (pictured), where Mill Street Car Park stood until recently, began earlier this year, and construction on the complex itself will begin in the summer of 2018.

The massive regeneration project has already attracted new businesses to the town, with the Bard micropub, Pinion Bistro, Kingsmen 1685 street food restaurant and the MATE Creative Cafe now open or due to open.

The redevelopment of Market Place is scheduled for later this year, and both a boutique hotel and a cinema are slated to come to the town in the next few years.

Liverpool Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram said the Shakespeare North Playhouse was “a hugely ambitious scheme which will attract jobs and investment, as well as visitors to the city region, and the new rail interchange will make a big difference to people’s lives.”

He added that the projects were “exactly the kinds of schemes we should be backing through our Single Investment Fund and I’m pleased we were able to support them to the tune of £14m.”

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