Regeneration Plans

Even before the explosion in March 2017, New Ferry's district centre had been in decline for over 30 years.  The growth of modern retail parks such as The Croft at Bromborough and Cheshire Oaks in Ellesmere Port had stripped most of the nation's traditional district centres of their visitors with the offer of brand new spacious branded stores and ample free car parking.  

New Ferry's importance as a medium sized local district centre had plummeted over the years, its demise hastened by both the changes in shopping habits brought about by the internet, and the decade long recession which finished off many traditional high street brands such as Woolworths and Ethel Austin, both of whom had stores in New Ferry until the early 2010s.  New Ferry's last bank departed in 2016, hot on the heels of the Co-op foodstore.  But the stores which remain there today are not dependent on the internet and, mostly being family run businesses, offer more of a personal touch to their customers that relies on face-to-face interaction which traditional high streets can still offer.  With such resilience, there has always been and still is hope for New Ferry's district centre to remain.

Back in 2012, the Council had been in discussions with the Co-op about the possibility of revamping their store, or a possible rebuild scheme with the consent of its then owner which could include some residential redevelopment on the Council owned Woodhead Street car park. The car park itself would have been brought to the front of the site on the footprint of what was then the Co-op. Unfortunately these plans came to nothing when the Co-op parent company revealed significant losses and put a halt on any such investment.

The gas explosion in 2017 demolished several businesses at the southern end of the precinct (Bebington Road) and damaged many other buildings, some of which have still not been repaired by their absentee owners. Responding to requests for help to rebuild, the government gave the Council a paltry £150,000 via Homes England to produce a report and plan to redevelop as many new homes on the explosion cleared sites and on Woodhead Street car park (also taking out the mostly long term derelict properties down one side of New Chester Road) as they could. 

The Council's consultants produced three options for consultation in January 2019. All three options included no new or replacement retail, instead opting for a blanket approach of replacing everything with residential development. Those plans also included taking out the whole of Woodhead Street car park, the traditional main car park for the town.  The community rejected those three options and put together their own fourth option which retained 70 car park spaces.  The Council agreed to this and used that plan as part of its outline planning application that was submitted and later approved in early 2020. The Council also initially agreed to include replacement ground floor retail uses on some of the sites, but this was omitted from that outline application at the last minute when the council insisted that building new shops was not commercially viable.

For three years, the community believed the future of the (reduced) car park at Woodhead Street was assured, but in September 2022, Regenda published a new masterplan at a public consultation which showed no new shops and the promised retained car park all deleted.  In December 2023, Regenda submitted the final detailed plans for Woodhead Street over the Christmas holiday which again showed the car park gone and replaced with new homes.  Despite opposition to the loss of the car park which the community had been promised in 2020, the planning committee approved the Regenda plans in 2024. The scheme commenced on site in January 2026 when Woodhead Street car park closed for good.

In December 2018, the government announced the Future Highways Fund which was designed to support and fund local areas’ plans to make their high streets and town centres fit for the future.  The first 14 high streets to receive a share of the £1 billion nationwide scheme were announced in  December 2019.  In December 2020 it was announced that New Ferry had been awarded £3.2 million which will be used to support the redevelopment scheme including addressing traffic issues around the centre and a redesign of the precinct pavings and layout. 

Phase one of the highways improvements finished in November 2025. This included a new public car park on Grove Street. It has 56 spaces and replaces the old Woodhead Street car park. The Woodhead Street site is now being used to build new homes.

Work on the designs for phase two covered the public areas along Bebington Road. There was a public consultation in March 2026, with the community being shown CGIs with high quality stone pavings and asked to choose the colours they preferred. The council had found additional money for the scheme and in press announcements said it would now cost £5.5 million. See the plans here: New Ferry local centre public realm proposal.pdf (PDF, 11.24MB)  

But in July 2026 when the scheme went to Wirral Council’s Environment, Climate Emergency and Transport Committee, a much reduced (in value) scheme was approved with all the expensive stone pavers dropped in favour of cheaper, coloured tarmac. A proposed butterfly trail and heritage signage were also ditched from the plans.  The community rebelled against this back-stepping and has since campaigned against the decision to take money away from New Ferry to fund other schemes elsewhere on the Wirral.  

Following closure of Woodhead Street car park in January 2026, and enforcement cameras being erected to deter anyone parking in the precinct in July 2026, footfall and trade in the precinct has plummeted by a reported 95%.  In early August, the traders met with the leader of the Council and completely rejected the (pedestrianised) repaving plans and asked for the road to be reopened to passing traffic and with parking lay-bys included as the ONLY way to save their businesses from extinction. They argued that had the council listened and kept the 70 spaces in Woodhead Street as originally promised back in 2020, maybe the precinct could have remained closed to general traffic.  But with the council having allowed the car park at Woodhead Street to go, and with issues meaning the new car park at Grove Street South was too far for disabled people to get to, there was now no way that trade in the precinct could be sustained.  Our precinct shops are now facing total wipeout unless the council changes the proposals.