The site, which has been held under option for two years, will represent Harworth's first residential land development in the North West, building on its existing track record elsewhere in the North of England and the Midlands.
Situated just over a mile away from St Helens town centre, the site is categorised as brownfield following decades of previous uses including as a coal pit, colliery and a concrete pipe works and already has an existing planning consent in place for 900 new homes.
Harworth will now apply its in-house masterplanning, land remediation and infrastructure expertise to create a new vision for the site. In the process Harworth will generate engineered land parcels for sale to housebuilders. It is estimated that the site will take up to a decade to be fully developed.
Owen Michaelson, Chief Executive Officer, commented:
“Having kept a very close eye on numerous potential development opportunities in the North West, I am very pleased that we have now decided to exercise our option to acquire this site. I am confident that we can use our market-leading land regeneration expertise to turn this presently dormant site into a key residential development supporting the delivery of new homes for St Helens and the Liverpool City Region.
“Looking ahead, we remain focused on growing our land bank for residential developments in the North West, which we believe presents a number of exciting opportunities.”
Steven Knowles, Regional Director for the North West, added:
“Our success in delivering Logistics North in Bolton over the past five years reflects the underlying strength of the North West property market, with good economic growth fuelling a strong pipeline of residential and commercial development. The Moss Nook site is well-located and with it already benefitting from an outline planning consent, it is already of strong interest to a range of national and local housebuilders.”