How we’re reawakening Port Sunlight’s special buildings

This autumn sees the beginning of an exciting new project by Port Sunlight Village Trust to bring some of the village’s empty buildings back into use, including the Fire Engine Station, 93-94 Greendale Road (previously NatWest), the Stables (behind the Gladstone Theatre) and others.

What’s the need?

As Chief Commercial Officer & Deputy CEO, one of my priorities since joining PSVT in May has been to grow our revenue. Achieving our charitable purpose to preserve and promote Port Sunlight is increasingly costly and so we need to find ways to develop our income streams. This will help us complete vital projects such as repairing the Boating Pond. Making better commercial use of the special buildings we own is one way we can do this.

Benefitting the community

Of course, there is more than revenue to be gained. We’ve listened to residents’ feedback that there needs to be a greater number of retail businesses in the village such as more places to eat and a village shop. These are important to making the village a great place to live, work and visit. Bringing currently empty buildings back into use also means we can better protect them for future generations.

A new lease of life

Our initial focus has been on two spaces – the Fire Engine Station and the old NatWest bank. I’m very excited to share that this autumn, internationally-renowned sculptor Emma Rodgers will be reawakening the Fire Engine Station as her new studio and workshop space. Merseyside-based Emma has forged a career that has seen her become some of most collectable artists in Britain. Many people will have already seen her work which includes the now-iconic statue of Cilla Black on Liverpool’s Mathew Street. We’re looking forward to working with Emma, whose creative talents will no doubt benefit our village.

We’re also close to agreeing terms with a new tenant at 93-94 Greendale Road who will be transforming the old NatWest bank into a vibrant independent owned coffee shop for everyone to enjoy – keep an eye out for more details coming very soon.

Work is also underway to bring the Stables back into use. This is the large building behind the Gladstone Theatre where Unilever’s company shop was located until it closed a few years ago. We’ve appointed architects to understand how we can best do this, with a view to welcoming commercial tenants from 2025.

Looking to the future

It’s important to recognise that while we want to preserve the village and everything that makes it special, many of its buildings have seen different uses over the decades. We want to ensure that however these spaces are used, they are not only raising much-needed funds to support looking after the village, but that they are benefitting the community too.

Looking to the future, there are other buildings in the village that may be given a new life as their current leases expire. This includes the Lyceum, following an early consultation last autumn to gather views on how this space could be transformed to benefit everyone. This project will require significant funds and so we’re busy looking into how we can secure external funding.

If you have any questions or would like to express an interest in bringing your business to one of our spaces, please email [email protected] or call 0151 644 4800.