St Helens Council planning committee has this week approved plans for the regeneration of the former Parkside colliery site and proposals for a new link road through the site. Warrington Council have also approved plans for the link road.
The Parkside colliery site has been empty and derelict for almost 30 years, and Labour have fought political opposition from the Lib Dems to finally bring a deliverable regeneration scheme forward.
The new link road is a crucial element of the regeneration. It will link the A49 with junction 22 of the M6, and the planning committee have recommended a weight restriction be put on the A49 entrance to the link road to ensure that no HGVs can enter or exit the Parkside site that way. Labour fully support the introduction of a weight restriction and will be fighting for it.
Councillor Richard McCauley, Cabinet member for Economic Regeneration and Housing, said: “With approval secured at planning committee for the first stage of development and the supporting link road at Parkside, our excitement for the site is definitely growing.
There’s been significant interest in the regeneration of Parkside for employment use since the colliery closed because of its unique and desirable strategic location on both the motorway and rail networks.
Parkside represents a major employment opportunity that St Helens borough needs, with the potential to unlock a broad range of quality jobs in the burgeoning logistics and construction industries and related supply chains for the benefit of our residents.
The new link road is where the future prospects of Parkside really show, opening up the possibility of a strategic rail freight interchange, which would be a game changer for the borough in terms of well paid jobs, bringing hundreds of millions of pounds into the local economy for years to come.”
Newton-le-Willows Councillor Seve Gomez-Aspron said: “2,000 people lost their jobs when Parkside Colliery closed. Even more when the Vulcan Works and numerous other businesses closed.
The new link road allows the colliery site to be developed whilst taking traffic away from the A49 to the M6 at J22.
The council will now model the weight restrictions requested meaning that HGVs could not access and exit via the A49, but commuters could still use the new road.
We will be pushing for this in partnership with the Winwick Councillors.”