Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) has secured grants worth £4.7m to help fund a further phase at a business park it owns in Sefton.

RLAM and partner Industrial Securities has been awarded the funding for the next development phase at the large Atlantic Park scheme on the former Rolls-Royce plant in Sefton, north of Liverpool. The grants are made up of £3.1m from the European Regional Development Fund and £1.6m from the North West Development Agency. The project will involve site preparation and infrastructure works to bring forward 22 hectares of land with the potential to develop approximately 807,300 sq ft of office and industrial accommodation, create 1,500 jobs and attract £40 million of private sector investment.

An existing single-storey office building, is to undergo a comprehensive programme of refurbishment and remodelling to provide Grade A office accommodation. Named Caspian House, the building, formerly an administration office for Rolls-Royce, will provide a modern office space of around 37,700 sq ft and will be available to let either as a whole or sub-divided into two individual self-contained units.

This latest phase of development complements Atlantic Park’s existing five-storey flagship Grade A office building, No 1 (pictured), which was completed in 2008 to increase the quality of out-of-town office accommodation in the local area. The building offers ‘L’ shaped floor plates ranging in size from 8,100 sq ft to 9,982 sq ft. The offices have BREEAM ratings of ‘very good’. Rental prices are available upon application.

Gareth Dickinson of Royal London Asset Management, the owners of the site, said:

“Investment of this scale allows us to kick-start the next phase of our speculative development and is a vital step towards making Atlantic Park a key employment site.

“A 36 week programme of works can now begin and will see us bring additional high quality space and much needed choice to the office market in the north of Liverpool. Caspian House will be completed by the end of the year and the site wide infrastructure will be in place by March 2011.”

Marketing agents include Mason & Partners.