THE chief of Wirral Waters has said progress at the controversial site will 'accelerate' once the first few projects, which he expects to be granted full planning permission within months, are finished.

Giving us full access to the huge site situated around East and West Float in Birkenhead, director of development Richard Mawdsley said the project is “on track”, adding that the current plans are just as ambitious as the initial CGIs released when the scheme was first announced.

Currently, the site, which will eventually consist of six “neighbourhoods”, is largely empty brownfield land, containing buildings such as the iconic Hydraulic Tower, set to be developed into a ‘Maritime Knowledge Hub’, and multiple industry units.

There’s notable dereliction, including abandoned buildings and boats, and huge empty spaces primed and ready for development.

Over the past few months, landowner Peel has come under fire from local MPs Alison McGovern and Angela Eagle over a lack of progress, with calls to build the 13,000 homes they promised, or give the land to someone who will.

Speaking this week, Mr Mawdsley said he was defiant the 30-plus-year project was “on track”, adding that it was important people didn’t think Peel had been “twiddling our thumbs”.

He said: “The first few projects to come out are by a long way the hardest and most important. After that, there will inevitably be an acceleration, like that has been seen in Salford Quays and in other projects around the world. That’s because accelerations of activity happen where confidence materializes.

“Housing in Wirral Waters was never going to be a steady line. It was always going to be a curved line, peaking in those last five or ten years of the project, when there will be much greater levels of markets confidence.”

The project currently has five planning applications with Wirral Council, for which there has been numerous publicity drives. They are:

  1. No 1 Tower Road South – a £6m Grade A office block. Submitted in March.

  2. Wirral Waters One / aka The Legacy Project – a £90m scheme for 500 apartments and catalyst for other housing projects. Submitted in May.

  3. Belong Dementia Care Village – a “state of the art” care village with 109 homes and 150 jobs.

  4. Egerton Village – an amenity and arts hub. Submitted in April.

  5. Vittoria Studios – a “flexible” commercial space. Submitted in May.

Speaking about the initial scepticism over what was promised at the start of the scheme back in 2012, Mr Mawdsley said: “People often say the first plans we released would never happen, but they are happening to the scale we anticipated.

“Although some designs may differ, it’s all still the scale of what we wanted to do. We are on track.

“People always want to know what’s happening now and how it will look immediately, which is difficult.

“We’re trying to communicate to people we haven’t been twiddling our thumbs and we are certainly not land banking. The next three or four years will be very exciting times for Wirral Waters and Birkenhead, with lots of activity that’s going to happen.”

Over the past few months, there has been suggestion from the political opposition that the council has taken too long “sitting on” the planning applications submitted by Wirral Waters.

But Mr Mawdsley said from Peel’s end, that was not the case.

He explained: “Each planning application has its own detailed reserved matters. That would usually take three to five months, I’ve got no problem with time scales that are running. The planning department at Wirral have been good with them.

“There’s a legal process and consultation process. That process is doing what it does.”

Since outline permission for the huge project was given in 2012, he said “a lot has been happening behind the scenes” including demolishing derelict buildings, installing new infrastructure and planting trees.

He added: “The month after we got outline planning consent for the entire project, we were on site remediating land, addressing the hurdles to delivery.”

Speaking about Wirral’s green belt saga, and the discussion of where to build the 12,000 homes needed in the borough by 2035, Mr Mawdsley said it was a “local authority issue”.

Despite the Wirral Waters project having a target of 13,000, that was over a 30-year plus time frame, something “Peel said from day one” – and not directly linked to the council’s 12,000 figure.

He added: “We’ve got land here and around docks, and we are keen on seeing high-density sustainable development.

“The key thing for us is we have still got that 13,000-unit target. But it’s about getting these first few projects off the ground.

“When people start to see cranes on site, they will be given assurance that things are happening. That will take the pressure off the green belt, I would imagine.”

Mr Mawdsley said the biggest challenge of the scheme so far has been “changing a place from what it was historically into something new”.

He explained: “It’s that point about market confidence and making it attractive for new occupiers. It’s the challenge most regeneration projects face.

“You can see it’s ambitious – we make no excuses for that. There’s both opportunity here within Birkenhead and Wirral, and need. We are combining the opportunities. They do not come round in the UK a lot.”

He added: “They key theme here is quality. We want people to want to live here, because it’s quality – not because it’s cheap or available. We are aiming for those looking to move outside London. Once they make that decision not to move to or within the capital, the regions are in competition.”