Merseyside Development Corporation

Merseyside Development Corporation
Formation 1981
Extinction 1998
Type Development Corporation
Headquarters Liverpool
Official language
English
Key people
Basil Bean

The Merseyside Development Corporation was a central government-appointed Development Corporation set up in 1981 by Margaret Thatcher's government to regenerate the Mersey docks of Liverpool, Bootle, Wallasey and Birkenhead. It was one of two Development Corporations to be set up in 1981, the other being the London Docklands Development Corporation, which also focused on disused docklands.

The first Chief Executive was Basil Bean, who had previously been general manager of the Northampton Development Corporation.[1] Actitivies undertaken by the Corporation include the Liverpool International Garden Festival in 1984,[2] and the redevelopment of the Albert Dock complex, which included the opening of Tate Liverpool.[3]

During its lifetime 7.6m sq.ft. of non-housing development and 486 housing units were built. Around 22,155 new jobs were created and some £698m of private finance was leveraged in. Circa 944 acres (3.82 km2) of derelict land was reclaimed and 60 miles (97 km) of new road and footpaths put in place.[4]

The Corporation was wound up in 1998.

References

  1. Bringing dead dockland to life. The Times. January 27, 1981
  2. A riot of colour for Toxteth at Liverpool flower festival. The Times. May 7, 1983
  3. Dockland 'Tate of the North'. The Times. June 17, 1983.
  4. National Audit Office report dated 27 February 2002.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, March 16, 2013. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.