Contractor sought for 'box park' on ex-Chalon Way Car Park site

Hugely popular in other areas, the box park will operate as a 'meanwhile use' on the former multi-story car park at Chalon Way, which was demolished and cleared earlier this year, with plans to regenerate the site in the longer term.

Box parks are venues that bring communities together, providing a space to eat, drink and listen or take part in live entertainment, all under one roof.

Cllr Richard McCauley, cabinet member for regeneration and planning, said: “This is yet another exciting development for St Helens town centre and one of many announcements that we’ll be making in the coming days and weeks.

“The space could provide a great reason to encourage people back into the town centre.

"People enjoy spending time with family and friends eating, drinking, people watching and listening to music and this site could provide the ideal opportunity for this in St Helens, like it has in other parts of the country."

Cllr McCauley

He added: “We envisage that this could happen in the short to medium term and while other developments are taking shape.

“We said we’d invest in the town centre and that we were determined to make it a place we can be proud of, and we meant it.”

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The confirmation of intent to create a box park comes ahead of the publication due tomorrow (Tuesday, October 12) of town centre regeneration masterplans for both St Helens and Earlestown which have been developed by the council in partnership with English Cities Fund.

The council says work is also progressing on the business cases for the six projects highlighted in the Town Investment Plan, for which the council successfully secured £25m worth of funding from Government.

The projects were confirmed and submitted to Government last week by the Town Deal Board and have now progressed to the next stage of development.