LIVERPOOL CITY REGION - KNOWSLEY

With a population of 150,000, Knowsley lies in the east of the Liverpool City Region. The M57 and M62 motorways and the A580 East Lancashire road intersect the borough, giving rapid access to the M6 and the rest of the UK.

Including the urban areas of Kirkby, Huyton, Stockbridge Village, Prescot, Whiston and Halewood, Knowsley covers a total of 33 square miles. Two thirds of the borough is also classified as green belt land, yet at the same time Knowsley has the highest percentage of industrial land of any UK Metropolitan borough. Industry is largely concentrated in the industrial and business parks adjacent to the main towns.

Key Facts and Figures

• Part of the global Tata empire, Halewood Operations is one of the world's leading automotive facilities. It produces the Land Rover Freelander 2 alongside and has just been given the new Range Rover LRX which will be the greenest car in its class.
• Several new office buildings have been constructed and fully occupied at the 50 acre Kings Business Park. Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) is based here, while Vertex (a global player in the Business Process Outsourcing market) moved its head office to Knowsley from Manchester.
• Home shopping giant QVC has invested £20m in its Customer Operations Centre in Knowsley, and has built a new automated high bay warehouse. The business has ambitious plans for growth and intends to continue to expand and create employment in the area.
• Getrag Ford have committed to a £115m investment to produce a new six-speed gearbox which will help meet the carbon emissions targets set for the automotive industry. The company was named as Best UK Engineering Plant 2005 (Cranfield School of Management).
• Home to Knowsley Safari Park and Knowsley Hall, the ancestral home of the Earls of Derby. The Stanley family was a patron of Shakespeare who was a frequent visitor to the area. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was first performed in nearby Prescot which has the only UK remains of a "cockpit" theatre from Elizabethan times outside London.

Existing investors include:

Barclaycard, Jaguar/ LandRover, News International, Getrag Ford, QVC, Delphi, Computer Science Corporation (CSC), Virgin Media, Vertex, Goodrich.