Knowsley Regeneration & Investment Briefing

Funding, places and delivery. A briefing for the organisations bringing forward homes and regeneration across Kirkby, Huyton, Prescot and Halewood.

Dates and decisions to watch

Figures in this briefing cover different programmes, geographies and periods. They should not be added into a single borough investment total.

The funding landscape

Up to £46 billion over ten years

Homes England and its subsidiary, the National Housing Bank, have up to £46 billion to deploy across England to 2036. These are the principal streams. [1]

The joint Investment Prospectus, published on 31 March 2026 ahead of the Bank's opening on 1 April, brings grant, land and finance into one framework. The Bank aims to attract more than £50 billion of additional private capital over the decade.

*The prospectus describes the agency's share as £3.1bn, subject to final confirmation. These are programme envelopes, not a ring-fenced allocation to Knowsley.

Programme milestones

Grant, land and finance (products and routes)

Which support fits a scheme depends less on its size than on what is holding it up: a funding gap, a difficult site, or the tenure of the homes to be delivered. [1]

Two grant routes in the Liverpool City Region. Land, remediation and infrastructure money is normally expected to come first through the Combined Authority, which took its integrated settlement on 1 April 2026 with housing and strategic planning as one of its six themes. Social and Affordable Homes Programme grant remains administered by Homes England, with LCRCA shaping rather than administering it. The National Housing Bank makes its own finance decisions while working alongside the agency. [1,2]

Knowsley's own recent experience shows both routes in use: Homes England's Brownfield Infrastructure and Land funding for Huyton (£19.14m), and the Combined Authority's Regeneration Capacity Building Fund for Prescot (£0.6m). [12,13]

Regional routes: Liverpool City Region

Regional routes: see regions/liverpool-city-region.md for the Combined Authority's funds, the integrated settlement, the Spatial Development Strategy, the LCR Housing Pipeline, the SAHP first-wave regional estimate (MHCLG's published £380m / c.3,100 homes), the Liverpool North Docks Mayoral Development Corporation and the regional skills offer.

For a Knowsley scheme, the first conversation depends on the funding gap. A regional headline figure is not a borough award.

Two of the region's 13 priority places are in Knowsley. LCRCA's published SAHP strategic priorities name Huyton and Prescot among the thirteen locations it has asked Homes England to prioritise, alongside a floor of at least 60% Social Rent and an ambition of around 16,000 social and affordable homes across the city region between 2026 and 2036. [4]

The Brownfield Land Fund investment criteria, still the clearest published statement of what LCRCA will back, name multi-tenure housing in North Knowsley and high-value residential in south Knowsley — a split that maps onto Kirkby and Stockbridge Village on one side and Whiston, Halewood and Prescot on the other. [5]

Regional ambitions to design for

Around 16,000 social and affordable homes across the city region from 2026 to 2036, at least 60% of them Social Rent, to the Future Homes Standard and EPC Band B or better, with accessible homes and Modern Methods of Construction. The LCR Housing Pipeline published on 16 January 2026 covers more than 300 sites and 64,044 homes across the six boroughs; it does not publish a Knowsley sub-total. [4,6]

Who decides what (decisions and public contacts)

1. Homes England / National Housing Bank — Final SAHP funding and contractual decisions; the Bank assesses its finance investments. Homes England is also the direct funder of the Huyton town centre grant agreement. [1,13,18]
2. Liverpool City Region Combined Authority — Regional priorities, tenure mix and priority places (Huyton and Prescot are named); Brownfield Land Fund; Housing Investment Fund; Regeneration Capacity Building Fund; the Spatial Development Strategy. [2,4,5]
3. Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council — Local housing need, planning authority, council land and the Housing Development Programme; accountable body for Pride in Place and the Impact Fund; joint applicant with its development partners at Huyton and Prescot. [12,13,19]
4. Kirkby Neighbourhood Board and the Page Moss & Fincham Neighbourhood Board — Shape and sign off the two Pride in Place plans; council accountability and national programme rules still apply. [7,9]
5. Development partners under contract — Genr8 Kajima Regeneration Ltd at Huyton (St Michael's Place), Cityheart at Prescot, and the Halsnead consortium at Whiston. These are existing appointments, not open opportunities. [12,14,20]
6. Registered Providers — Livv Housing Group (the borough's largest, the former Knowsley Housing Trust stock), Torus, Onward Homes, Your Housing Group and Cobalt Housing all develop in Knowsley. [19,21]

Public routes for the next conversation

A useful first enquiry names the site, landowner, proposed use, delivery lead, funding gap and next decision.

Accessing programme grant: a route for smaller providers

• Continuous Market Engagement — Open for individual schemes and portfolios while funding remains available. Designed to accommodate smaller partners, new entrants and complex projects. [25]
• Strategic partnerships — Programme-level allocations. The initial bidding round closed on 15 April 2026; future rounds will be announced. [18]

Before a grant application

Organisations need Homes England Investment Partner qualification to receive grant. The Liverpool City Region asks for at least 60% Social Rent through SAHP. [4,25]

Knowsley's own planning-led requirement is lower and much older: Core Strategy Policy CS15 (adopted January 2016) seeks a minimum 10% affordable housing on sites of 15 dwellings or more in the urban area, rising to 25% on the Sustainable Urban Extensions including Halsnead, subject to viability. That gap between a 2016 planning policy and a 2026 regional tenure floor is the single most useful thing to understand before designing a Knowsley scheme. [27]

The council's route into the programme has historically been through RPs with strategic-partner status rather than direct bids: the 2022–2027 Housing Strategy names Onward Homes, Torus and Your Housing as Homes England strategic partners then developing in the borough, with Astley Road in Huyton (Torus) and Whitefield Brook in Kirkby (Your Housing) delivered through that route. [19]

Places and programmes (borough programmes)

Kirkby town centre — 800 homes consented, plus a £19.5m Pride in Place plan

Kirkby carries both the borough's largest single consent and its most advanced neighbourhood programme.

Tudor Place, land south of Cherryfield Drive. Knowsley's Planning Committee approved 800 energy-efficient homes on 3 February 2025 — a mix of two, three and four bedroom houses with 10 bungalows and apartments, 80 of them affordable, on a brownfield site in the town centre. The developer is Barratt David Wilson Homes. The decision secured £7.7m of Section 106 contributions: £4.4m for secondary school capacity, £2m for open space and sports, £817,000 for GP services and £462,000 for off-site tree planting, with 196 construction jobs estimated. [28]

The 2022–2027 Housing Strategy describes the same land as around 57 acres at Cherryfield Drive delivering up to 700 new homes — the earlier figure. Treat 800 as the consented number and 700 as the superseded strategy figure; do not add them. [19]

Kirkby town centre retail and the Gateway site. The council has committed to a further phase of retail in the town centre and promotes the "Kirkby Gateway" opportunity site for homes, a hotel and commercial office space. Floorspace of about 29,000 sq ft is reported for the retail phase from press coverage; not verified against a council report. [29]

Livv Housing Group has completed its first social rent new-build in Knowsley — 20 apartments at Mossborough Drive and Moorfield in Tower Hill, Kirkby — and is bringing forward Gaywood Green, off Broad Lane, about a 20-minute walk south-east of Kirkby town centre, on the site cleared after four tower blocks containing 256 flats (Livv's stock in its former incarnation as Knowsley Housing Trust) were demolished in 2023. [21,30,53,54]

Livv now has its own project page for the scheme, which is the place to watch it. The published position there is that the planning application remains under determination by Knowsley Council — a decision was originally expected in April, then delayed pending consultee comments, with Livv hopeful of a decision by the end of August — and that Livv has already run a contractor selection and cost review, with bidders' proposals including job, apprenticeship and training commitments for local people. Construction is anticipated "later this year or, at the latest, early next year", with a "Meet the Contractor" drop-in for residents once planning and appointment are settled. Enquiries: gaywoodgreen@livvhousinggroup.com · 0151 290 7000. [53]

The 79 homes figure — six house types across three and four storeys around a village green, in a mix of social rent, shared ownership and rent to buy, designed by GWP Architecture — still comes from trade press rather than Livv's own page, which does not state a number; treat the count as not verified, but the scheme itself, its status and its contact route are now confirmed first-hand. [53,54]

Huyton — St Michael's Place, over 400 homes and a £19.14m Homes England agreement

The largest town-centre scheme in the borough. Knowsley Council and Genr8 Kajima Regeneration Ltd (GKRL, a 50/50 joint venture between Genr8 Developments and Kajima Partnerships formed in 2020) submitted a hybrid application on 12 November 2025, reference 25/00606/HYB, for St Michael's Place on a 7-acre site in Huyton town centre. Scheme value is reported at about £200m. [14,31,51,52]

The earlier pre-application description carried in this brief — "close to 400 homes, a 90,000 sq ft council headquarters... around 150,000 sq ft of office space across eight buildings around a 3.3-acre green" — is superseded by the figures above, which are those in the submitted application.

On 1 April 2026 the council announced a Grant Funding Agreement with Homes England worth £19.14m for the community hub, infrastructure works, public realm, and demolition of the existing car park to build a sustainable travel hub. The council's own description of the housing component is "over 400 new homes". [13]

Demolition of the Computer Centre and the Huyton Annexe was due to start in September 2026 to clear the site. A separate planning application has been submitted for a new community hub relocating Huyton Library to a central high-street location with flexible community, leisure, skills and cultural space. [14,32]

Huyton is one of the thirteen LCRCA priority places for SAHP grant. [4]

Prescot — Cityheart, the shopping centre and 1- and 2-bed homes

Knowsley Council bought the 90,000 sq ft town-centre retail complex in 2022 and selected Cityheart as its development partner in September 2024. Cabinet approved the partnership and £0.6m of capital on 19 March 2026, funded from the Liverpool City Region Regeneration Capacity Building Fund, to take the scheme to RIBA Stage 4 — expected to take up to 12 months, so a costed, coordinated scheme falls due around spring 2027. [12]

The scheme retains key retail units nearest the high street, improves the car park, creates new public routes and delivers a new library, museum and cultural space, with space for future new homes including affordable one- and two-bedroom properties. No homes number is published. Prescot also holds the £27m Shakespeare North Playhouse, opened 2022, and a grade II listed former museum in and around Market Place. Prescot is the second Knowsley entry in LCRCA's thirteen priority places. [4,12,33]

An earlier £8m Levelling Up Fund bid for Prescot was unsuccessful. [34]

Halsnead Garden Village, Whiston — around 1,600 homes

One of only 14 sites in England awarded Garden Village status by government in 2017, and the largest combined housing and employment site in the Liverpool City Region. The masterplan covers approximately 1,600 new homes, at least 22.5 hectares of employment land, 33 hectares of new greenspace and a new 28-hectare country park, with around 1,000 jobs on the employment site. It is a Sustainable Urban Extension under the Core Strategy, so the 25% affordable housing requirement of Policy CS15 applies rather than the 10% urban-area figure. [27,35]

These parcels are stages of one masterplan. They should not be added to the 1,600 headline, which already contains them.

Enquiries: invest@knowsley.gov.uk · 0151 477 4000. [35]

Other places

• East of Halewood — the borough's second largest residential site, almost 200 acres in two parcels split by the Liverpool–Manchester rail line. A Supplementary Planning Document was adopted by Cabinet on 25 March 2020; a draft masterplan has been consulted on. No consented homes number is published. [38]
• Earlsfield Park, North Huyton — a 22-hectare site near M57 junction 2 delivering around 154 homes by Bellway with a minimum of 16 hectares of employment land, alongside business units, a convenience store, a Marston's Inn and a fuel station. [39]
• Halewood district centre — £15.3m from Round 2 of the Levelling Up Fund for district centre expansion, greenspace and leisure improvements and walking and cycling connectivity. Knowsley submitted three Round 2 bids; the Huyton (£20m) and Prescot (£8m) bids were unsuccessful. [34]
• Knowsley Business Park — one of the largest employment areas in Europe; employment rather than housing. [22]

Pride in Place: two neighbourhoods, two boards, two clocks

Knowsley has one phase-one neighbourhood with an approved plan and money moving, and one phase-two neighbourhood still assembling its board against a November deadline. They are at very different stages and should not be approached in the same way.

Knowsley's own published explanation of the difference is worth taking at face value: Kirkby is roughly two years ahead because it came through the earlier programme, and phase two operates under guidance that puts noticeably more weight on community participation. [8]

The live project call: the Kirkby Community Fund

The Kirkby Neighbourhood Board opened a community grants round from its Pride in Place allocation: £110,000 capital and £22,000 revenue, £132,000 in total. By 2 September 2026 the board had received more than 26 applications seeking about £460,000 — an oversubscription of roughly three and a half times. A board panel shortlists for the September meeting, applicants are notified in September and successful grants are paid in October 2026. [40]

This is the only open Knowsley Pride in Place call found. A future round is not announced. Note that searches for "Kirkby Pride in Place grants" also return Kirkby-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, a different programme in a different district; the Ashfield figures are not Knowsley's.

Bring a project that can be delivered

• Need, ownership and consent — Who benefits, land control, delivery lead, consents and dependencies.
• Capital and continuing costs — Works, contingency, asset owner, operating budget and maintenance.

National guidance sets the 30 November 2026 plan milestone for phase-two areas — Page Moss & Fincham is in the cohort of 160 phase 2 boards subject to that date, confirmed against MHCLG's phase 2 place-selection note, which lists "Knowsley | 1 | Page Moss & Fincham". Boards must have at least eight members; at least 51% should live or work locally. [42,43,50]

Two national points matter here. Kirkby, as a phase 1 place, has no Pride in Place Plan deadline: the delivery guidance says phase 1 places have received their early capacity funding and are in year 1 of delivery, and the 26 February 2027 date in that guidance applies only to the 40 phase 2 boards named in March 2026 and to Wales. For Page Moss & Fincham the published phase 2 payment profile is £150,000 of early revenue in 2025/26 to establish the board, £135,000 revenue plus £117,604 capital in 2026/27, a second revenue payment of £138,462 on approval of the Chair, board membership and any boundary change, and then £1.36m on approval of the Plan, in financial year 2027/28, with annual payments thereafter. Phase 2 funding is split 63% capital / 37% revenue; phase 1 is 75% capital / 25% revenue. [43,50]

Local investment and project calls: different pots, different decisions

Do not add these figures together. They are different programmes, geographies and periods, and some of them fund the same sites.

Homes, partners and local need

What the evidence base says

The Knowsley Housing Strategy 2022–2027, "Building on success and strengthening our offer", rests on the Knowsley Housing Needs Assessment 2021. Its headline figures: [19]

The strategy's five priorities are: locally distinctive places; maintaining delivery, promoting choice and affordability; extending opportunities for local people; improving the quality of existing homes; and homes for all, promoting independent living. A recurring theme in both the strategy and the 2026 Local Plan scrutiny review is the need for more one- and two-bedroom homes across all tenures — Knowsley's stock is unusually weighted to three-bedroom houses, which in some townships reaches nearly 70%. That is the single clearest statement of what the council wants built. [11,19]

The statutory requirement

Core Strategy Policy CS3 (adopted January 2016) provides for 8,100 new dwellings between 2010 and 2028, an annual average of 450, as a minimum net figure. The indicative distribution is Huyton and Stockbridge Village 36%, Prescot, Whiston, Cronton and Knowsley Village 32%, Kirkby 16% and Halewood 16%. [27]

Delivery has recently run above that: the council reported 461 net additional homes completed in the year covered by the final Council Plan 2022–2025 update, 283 of them (61%) affordable. [44]

Policy CS3 runs to 2028 and the government requires a new Local Plan to begin later in 2026, so the 450-a-year figure has a short remaining life. The new plan's timetable is published but every date on it is still marked "to be confirmed". [10]

Named local delivery

Seven of the 33 SAHP first-wave strategic partners have an established Liverpool City Region presence and several already build in Knowsley: Torus62 Limited, Onward Homes Limited, Great Places Housing Association, Places For People Group Limited, Sanctuary Housing Association, Vistry Homes Limited and Sage Homes RP Limited. Livv Housing Group — the borough's largest landlord and the successor to Knowsley Housing Trust — is not on the first-wave list, so its route into the new programme is continuous market engagement or a delivery partnership. [3,25,26]

These are examples of local activity, not a complete provider list or evidence of a new SAHP award.

Delivery and the supply chain

Finding the actual route to work

Knowsley Council advertises tenders and quotations electronically on The Chest (https://www.the-chest.org.uk), the North West's shared procurement portal, hosted on the Proactis ProContract platform and used by five of the six Liverpool City Region councils and by LCRCA. Knowsley's own procurement page sends suppliers to https://procontract.due-north.com/Opportunities/Index to reach its listings; Liverpool City Council uses ProContract directly rather than the Chest portal. [24,45,46] Registration is free and suppliers can set email alerts across one, several or all participating authorities. Above-threshold notices also appear on Find a Tender. [24,45]

The council's contracts register is published through the Due North ProContract platform; registers from before Q1 2024 sit on The Chest. A separate forward procurement pipeline document was not found — the published route to advance notice is Chest alerts rather than a pipeline spreadsheet. [45,46]

Social value. For all contracts above £25,000 the council considers social, economic and environmental benefit, and evaluates on price, quality and social value with weightings set proportionately to each procurement. The council states it deliberately avoids prescribing a single rigid methodology, so there is no published standard social value percentage weighting — establish it per tender. [47]

A funding announcement does not itself create an open invitation to tender. At Huyton the delivery partner (Genr8 Kajima) and at Prescot the development partner (Cityheart) are already appointed; supply-chain work on those schemes flows through those partners, not through a council tender.

Skills and delivery capacity

Knowsley Community College is the borough's further education provider, now operating in a group with St Helens College. Main site: Stockbridge Lane, Huyton, Merseyside L36 3SD. General enquiries 0151 477 5850 · info@knowsleycollege.ac.uk. The Kirkby campus is described by the college as its centre for skills and employment, in the centre of Kirkby. The college offers vocational and technical courses, T Levels and apprenticeships; a Knowsley-specific construction skills hub is not verified. [48]

The regional North-West Construction Technical Excellence College, one of ten in England, is hosted by Wigan & Leigh College with delivery partners Blackpool & The Fylde College and the East Lancashire Learning Group; its footprint covers Liverpool City Region. Enquiries: CTECenquiries@wigan-leigh.ac.uk. See regions/liverpool-city-region.md for the regional skills routes, including LCRCA's Construction Skills Service (employmentofficers@liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk), Skills Bootcamps and the LCR Careers Hub. [49]

Social value commitments above £25,000 are the practical hook for apprenticeships and placements on Knowsley contracts; agree them with the contract owner at tender stage, not after award. [47]

Sources

Research checked on 19 September 2026.

1. Homes England / National Housing Bank, Investment Prospectus 2026 · source
2. LCRCA, integrated settlement · source ; see regions/liverpool-city-region.md
3. Homes England / MHCLG, SAHP first-wave strategic partners, 25 August 2026 · source
4. Homes England, SAHP strategic priorities in established mayoral strategic authority areas · source
5. LCRCA, Brownfield Land Fund and brownfield land · source
6. LCRCA, LCR Housing Pipeline, 16 January 2026 — see regions/liverpool-city-region.md · source
7. Knowsley News, "Kirkby Regeneration and Investment Plan approved", March 2026 · source
8. Knowsley News, "Pride in Place – the facts and differences between phase one and phase two funding allocations" · source ; "Pride in Place update" · source
9. Knowsley News, "More than £20 million set for Knowsley as part of 'Pride in Places' funding" · source
10. Knowsley Council, Local Plan timetable and planning policy contact · source · source
11. Knowsley News, "Local Plan update", 18 March 2026 · source
12. Knowsley News, "Major Step Forward for Prescot Town Centre Transformation", 19 March 2026 · source
13. Knowsley News, "Huyton's development plans take another step forward", 1 April 2026 · source
14. Housing Today, "Plans submitted for £200m Huyton town centre regeneration scheme" · source
15. MHCLG, Pride in Place Impact Fund grant determinations 2025–26 · source
16. MHCLG, Pride in Place Impact Fund grant determinations 2026–27 · source
17. MHCLG, Impact Fund frequently asked questions · source
18. Homes England, SAHP 2026–2036 guidance · source
19. Knowsley Council, Knowsley Housing Strategy 2022–2027 · source
20. Cityheart, Prescot project page · source
21. Livv Housing Group, "Our first social rent development in Knowsley is complete", 19 November 2025 · source
22. Invest Knowsley, major projects · source
23. Knowsley Council, contact us · source
24. The Chest · source
25. Homes England, SAHP continuous market engagement · source
26. Homes England, SAHP strategic partnership route · source
27. Knowsley Council, Local Plan Core Strategy, adopted January 2016, Policies CS3 and CS15 · source
28. Knowsley News, "New homes and more investment heading for Kirkby", 3 February 2025 · source
29. Insider Media, "Next phase of Kirkby town centre regeneration moves forward" · source
30. Knowsley Chamber, "Livv Housing Group's development pipeline exceeds £100m" · source
31. Place North West, "£200m Huyton regen enters next phase" · source
32. Knowsley News, "Further step forward for new community hub in Huyton" · source
33. Invest Knowsley, Prescot town centre · source
34. Knowsley News, "Knowsley secures £15.3m Levelling Up Fund for Halewood" · source ; Invest Knowsley, Levelling Up bids · source
35. Halsnead Garden Village · source
36. Place North West, "Taylor Wimpey lines up another 582 Halsnead homes", 14 February 2025 · source
37. Halsnead Garden Village / Knowsley News, "First homes at affordable Halsnead Garden Village development to be completed early 2025" · source
38. Knowsley Council, East of Halewood Supplementary Planning Document (Cabinet, 25 March 2020) and masterplan baseline report · source · source
39. Invest Knowsley, Earlsfield Park · source ; Bellway, Earlsfield Park · source
40. Knowsley News, "Applications received for the Kirkby Community Fund", 2 September 2026 · source
41. Kirkby Neighbourhood Board · source
42. MHCLG, Pride in Place programme delivery guidance · source
43. MHCLG, Pride in Place programme prospectus · source
44. Knowsley News, "Key achievements outlined as Council provides final update on the Knowsley Council Plan 2022-2025" · source
45. Knowsley Council, Working with the Council · source
46. Knowsley Council, contracts and tenders / contracts register · source
47. Knowsley Council, Social Value in the Council's procurement process · source
48. Knowsley Community College · source ; contact page · source
49. Wigan & Leigh College, North-West Construction Technical Excellence College — see regions/liverpool-city-region.md
50. MHCLG, Pride in Place Programme: phase 2 place selection methodology note ("Knowsley | 1 | Page Moss & Fincham") · source
51. Genr8 Developments, "Planning Submitted for £200m Regeneration of Huyton Town Centre" (hybrid application submitted 12 November 2025) · source
52. Place North West, "Genr8 Kajima details £200m Huyton regen", 4 November 2025 (7-acre site; up to 420 homes in outline; 91,000 sq ft council HQ by 5Plus Architects to BREEAM Excellent; 130-bed hotel by KKA; 400-space mobility hub off Lathom Road; application reference 25/00606/HYB) · source
53. Livv Housing Group, Gaywood Green project page (scheme updates, planning status and the gaywoodgreen@livvhousinggroup.com contact) · source
54. Place North West, "Social providers seek Knowsley success" (Gaywood Green: 79 homes across social rent, shared ownership and rent to buy; six house types; three and four storeys around a village green; GWP Architecture; site off Broad Lane, cleared after four tower blocks totalling 256 flats were demolished in 2023) · source
55. MHCLG, "Historic council housebuilding comeback to help families into secure homes", 24 August 2026 — regional funding breakdown of estimated first-wave SAHP Strategic Partnership spend and homes by established mayoral strategic authority: Greater Manchester £529m / c.4,400 homes; West Midlands £409m / c.3,200 homes; North East £445m / c.3,400 homes; West Yorkshire £441m / c.4,000 homes; Liverpool City Region £380m / c.3,100 homes; South Yorkshire £249m / c.2,200 homes · source

Research notes

Verified from primary or council sources

• Core Strategy Policy CS3 read first-hand from the adopted January 2016 PDF: 8,100 dwellings 2010–2028, 450 a year minimum net, distributed Huyton and Stockbridge Village 36%, Prescot/Whiston/Cronton/Knowsley Village 32%, Kirkby 16%, Halewood 16%. Policy CS15 read first-hand: 10% affordable on urban sites of 15 dwellings or more, 25% on the Sustainable Urban Extensions. [27]
• Housing Strategy 2022–2027 read first-hand from the council PDF: 243 affordable homes required a year, a net shortfall of 178 a year at 70/30 rented to ownership, 2,680 on the register at September 2021, 1,092 homeless presentations in 2020/21, 4,005 completions 2016/17–2020/21 of which 934 affordable, 1,022 older people's specialist units needed to 2036. It also names Onward, Torus and Your Housing as the Homes England strategic partners then developing in the borough, with Astley Road (Torus) and Whitefield Brook (Your Housing) as the live strategic-partnership sites. [19]
• Pride in Place Impact Fund: Knowsley's 2026/27 determination of £750,000, dated 8 April 2026, read directly from the GOV.UK determination. [16]
• SAHP first-wave partner list read directly from the GOV.UK release: 33 partners, Livv Housing Group not among them; Torus62, Onward, Great Places, Places for People, Sanctuary, Vistry and Sage are. [3]
• Local Plan timetable page confirms every stage of the new Knowsley Local Plan is currently marked "to be confirmed", with a CSV to follow under the Planning Data (England) Regulations 2026. [10]
• Planning policy contact confirmed: localplan@knowsley.gov.uk, 0151 443 2326, Huyton Library, Civic Way, L36 6GD. [10]
• Knowsley Community College main address confirmed as Stockbridge Lane, Huyton L36 3SD, 0151 477 5850, info@knowsleycollege.ac.uk; the college now operates in a group with St Helens College. [48]
• Social value threshold confirmed at £25,000 with no published standard weighting. [47]

Open items

• The Page Moss and Fincham Independent Chair has not been named in any published source as at 19 September 2026. Searched again on that date: knowsleynews.co.uk (site search for "Page Moss" returns only three articles, the most recent being "Pride in Place – the facts and differences between phase one and phase two funding allocations", 25 March 2026, which still says only that the board "will be led by an independent Chairperson"); the "Pride in Place update" article of 18 March 2026, fetched directly, confirms no chair named; www.knowsley.gov.uk/pride-in-place returns HTTP 404; and no chair announcement appears in national or trade coverage. The 15 June 2026 application deadline still appears only in a search summary.
• Impact Fund target wards and projects for Knowsley's £1.5m are not published; no Cabinet or committee report was found.

Verification 19 Sep 2026

• SAHP national figure settled. The 25 August 2026 release states only "33 partners will receive grant funding ... outside of London" and gives no grant or homes total. The partner table sums to £9,584.1m and 73,617 homes. Neither of the two circulating variants flagged in this brief's earlier note (£9,399.7m / 81,462 homes; £9.996bn / 84,197 homes) is supported. The programme milestones table and the discrepancy note have both been updated. [3]
• Page Moss & Fincham confirmed against the primary list. MHCLG's phase 2 place-selection note reads "Knowsley | 1 | Page Moss & Fincham", so the 30 November 2026 Plan deadline and the 17 July 2026 board/boundary date already in this brief are correct as stated. [50]
• Added. The phase 2 payment profile for Page Moss & Fincham (£150,000 in 2025/26; £135,000 revenue plus £117,604 capital in 2026/27; £138,462 on approval of Chair, board and boundary; £1.36m on Plan approval in FY 2027/28) has been added. [43,50]
• Procurement corrected. "All six Liverpool City Region councils use The Chest" is wrong. Five do; Liverpool City Council's own tender page sends suppliers to Proactis ProContract, the platform The Chest runs on. Knowsley's own page sends suppliers to procontract.due-north.com/Opportunities/Index to reach its Chest listings, which is consistent with the contracts-register note already in this brief. [24,45,46]
• Re-confirmed unchanged against the primary determinations. Knowsley at £750,000 in 2025/26 (signed 29 September 2025) and £750,000 in 2026/27 (signed 8 April 2026). Also re-confirmed: Torus62, Onward, Great Places, Places for People, Sanctuary, Vistry and Sage all appear on the 33-partner list, and Livv Housing Group does not — the brief's most consequential local finding. [3,15,16]
• Remaining open items are unchanged: the Page Moss & Fincham chair, the Impact Fund target wards, and the Local Plan timetable.
• Kirkby Gateway and the 29,000 sq ft retail phase rest on press reporting only.
• Gaywood Green, 79 homes by Livv is press-sourced; no Livv or council page confirms it.
• Taylor Wimpey Plots 2b and 3 at Halsnead (582 homes) were at EIA scoping in February 2025; the application outcome is not verified.
• East of Halewood has an adopted 2020 SPD and a consulted draft masterplan but no published consented homes number.
• St Michael's Place planning decision status is not verified; the £19.14m grant agreement and the September 2026 demolition are confirmed, the determination of the hybrid application is not.
• No Knowsley UKSPF successor allocation or open call was found for 2026/27; in the Liverpool City Region this sits inside the integrated settlement.
• No forward procurement pipeline document is published; The Chest alerts are the route.
• The national figure discrepancy flagged here has been settled on 19 September 2026 against the release itself: it states only that "33 partners will receive grant funding", with no grant or homes total. The published partner table sums to £9,584.1m and 73,617 homes. Neither £9.996bn/84,197 nor £9,399.7m/81,462 is supported. The borough figures in this brief do not depend on either. [3]

Verification pass 2, 19 Sep 2026

• St Michael's Place corrected to the application as submitted. The hybrid application is reference 25/00606/HYB, submitted 12 November 2025, on a 7-acre site. It seeks full permission for the Cavendish Walk conversion, the council headquarters and the hotel, and outline permission for the mixed-use element including up to 420 homes. The headquarters is 91,000 sq ft (5Plus Architects, BREEAM Excellent target), the hotel 130 beds (KKA), and there is a 400-space mobility hub off Lathom Road. The previously carried figures — "close to 400 homes", "90,000 sq ft" headquarters, "around 150,000 sq ft of office space across eight buildings around a 3.3-acre green" — were the pre-application description and are superseded. [51,52]
• Gaywood Green upgraded from press-only to a first-party source. Livv Housing Group publishes a project page for the scheme, confirming it is live, that the planning application is still under determination by Knowsley Council (decision slipped from April pending consultee comments), that contractor selection and cost review are complete, that bidders' offers carry local job, apprenticeship and training commitments, and that construction is anticipated late 2026 or early 2027. A named enquiry route now exists: gaywoodgreen@livvhousinggroup.com · 0151 290 7000. The 79-home count itself is still press-sourced — Livv's page states no number — so it stays marked not verified, alongside the added detail that the site was cleared of four tower blocks containing 256 flats in 2023 and is designed by GWP Architecture. [53,54]
• Page Moss & Fincham chair remains not verified after a systematic re-search on 19 September 2026 (see Open items above for exactly what was checked). No chair has been named anywhere.
• Re-confirmed unchanged: Page Moss & Fincham as Knowsley's single phase 2 neighbourhood with a 30 November 2026 plan deadline and the 17 July 2026 board date; the Impact Fund at £750,000 in each determination; Core Strategy Policies CS3 (8,100 dwellings 2010–2028, 450 a year) and CS15 (10% urban / 25% Sustainable Urban Extensions); the Tudor Place consent of 800 homes with 80 affordable and £7.7m of Section 106; Livv's absence from the SAHP first-wave partner list.
• Still open: the Impact Fund target wards; Kirkby Gateway and its 29,000 sq ft retail phase; the outcome of Taylor Wimpey's 582-home Halsnead plots 2b and 3; East of Halewood's consented homes number; the determination of 25/00606/HYB; the Local Plan timetable; any UKSPF successor allocation; a forward procurement pipeline.

Blocked or failed URLs

• https://publicaccess.knowsley.gov.uk/publicaccess/ — the council's planning register timed out repeatedly on 19 September 2026 (curl exit 28; ScrapingBee returned upstream error 613). The determination status of application 25/00606/HYB (St Michael's Place) could not be checked at source as a result.
• https://www.knowsley.gov.uk/pride-in-place — HTTP 404 (checked 19 September 2026); Knowsley's Pride in Place material sits on knowsleynews.co.uk, not the council's own site.
• https://kirkbyneighbourhoodboard.co.uk/meet-the-board/ — HTTP 404. Board membership beyond the chair could not be listed.
• https://www.knowsley.gov.uk/planning-and-development/planning-policy/new-local-plan — HTTP 404 (the live page is the Local Plan timetable page, source 10).
• https://www.knowsley.gov.uk/business/tenders-and-contracts — HTTP 404 (live pages are sources 45 and 46).
• https://www.knowsleycollege.ac.uk/ — TLS certificate chain error on WebFetch ("unable to verify the first certificate"); retrieved with curl instead.
• The Knowsley Housing Strategy PDF would not parse in WebFetch; read via pdftotext.

General information only, not legal, financial or professional advice. Confirm eligibility and terms with the relevant body.

• Correction, 19 September 2026 (later the same day). An earlier verification note attached a 26 February 2027 Pride in Place Plan deadline to Kirkby as a phase 1 place. The delivery guidance, re-read directly, gives that date to the 40 phase 2 boards named in March 2026 and to Wales only; phase 1 places have no plan deadline. The Kirkby rows and the note above have been corrected. Knowsley has no place in the March 2026 expansion list. [43]
• SAHP first-wave regional estimate added. MHCLG's release of 24 August 2026, "Historic council housebuilding comeback to help families into secure homes," publishes a regional funding breakdown giving Liverpool City Region an estimated £380m and around 3,100 homes for first-wave Strategic Partnership spend — MHCLG's own regional estimate, not press-sourced, and not a Knowsley award. [55]