St Helens Council has announced that it will purchase Church Square Shopping Centre for an agreed fee of £26.6m. The Council hopes that the purchase will give them greater control over retail stock in St Helens, allowing regeneration to be brought forward in the town.
The purchase will enable the delivery of plans outlined in ‘St Helens: Transforming our Town’ which was the vision document released on 14 August for consultation.
Council Leader, Barrie Grunewald said: “We are committed to investing in our Borough, in a prudent way, to both increase our income streams and to help bring forward our town centre regeneration plans.
“This investment has taken some time to come to fruition and has not been easy but I believe it is the right thing to do for the Borough as a whole. Our vision for the town centre talked about us having only one per cent of the retail space in the town and that because of this, we were limited in terms of what we could do. By taking control of Church Square Shopping Centre we can now properly plan for new town centre development.
“I hope this action will make people realise just how serious we are about turning the town centre around, as doing nothing would equate to ongoing decline. Now is the time to act.”
The Council has also recently announced that it will have to cut its annual budget. St Helens Council’s Chief Executive, Mike Palin has responded to questions on how the purchase relates to the Council’s budget cuts.
He said: “Our budget works on the basis that we have a set amount of revenue monies we can spend per year. This has reduced by over £70m since 2010 and we are required to reduce our annual spend by a further £20.6m by 2020 to balance the books.
“Separate from the amount we have per year for services we can borrow money to make investments where there is an income stream on a year on year basis to cover the cost of that investment.This purchase has been made on an investment basis whereby the cost of managing the asset and paying down the borrowing is less than the income anticipated.
“This means the investment has a positive impact as well as giving us the control required to bring forward regeneration plans for the town centre as a whole.
“What we cannot do is borrow money to spend on services as they do not generate a revenue stream to pay-down the borrowing. We still have to cut £20.6m from our annual spend by 2020.”
With the purchase now complete the Council will be writing to all current tenants making them aware of the ownership change and will be working with professional advisers on options for improving the centre.
