St Helens, Metropolitan Borough of St. Helens, England, United Kingdom

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 St Helens is a large town in Merseyside, England. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens.

St Helens is in the south-west of the historic county of Lancashire, 6 miles (10 kilometres) north of the River Mersey. The town historically lay within the ancient Lancashire division of West Derby known as a hundred. The town initially started as a small settlement in the township of Windle but, by the mid 1700s, the town had become synonymous with a wider area; by 1838, it was formally made responsible for the administration of the four townships of Eccleston, Parr, Sutton and Windle. In 1868, the town was created by incorporation as a municipal borough and later became a county borough in 1887; it became a metropolitan borough in 1974, with an expanded administrative responsibility for towns and villages in close proximity.

The area developed rapidly in the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries into a significant centre for coal mining and glassmaking. It was also home to a cotton and linen industry (notably sail making) that lasted until the mid 19th century as well as salt, lime and alkali pits, copper smelting, and brewing.

Glass producer Pilkington is the town's only remaining large industrial employer. Previously it was home to Beechams, the Gamble Alkali Works, Ravenhead glass, United Glass Bottles, Triplex, Daglish Foundry, and Greenall's brewery.

Economy The glass industry is no longer the major employer it once was; however, it still employs over a thousand people in the town. The large Pilkington Brothers works, founded in 1826, dominates the town's industrial quarter and still produces all the UK's output of flat glass.

In 1994, planning permission was sought out for a link road connecting the M62 directly with the town centre. The development included a £5m retail and commercial property project in the Ravenhead area that had seen successive business closures with the folding of UGB and Ravenhead Glass.

Retail The town's shopping area is centred on the parish church of St Helens, the original site of St Mary's open market. The open market was later replaced by an awned covered market that populated Chapel Lane and the locale.

The current Church Square shopping centre surrounds St Helens on three sides. Church Street, the main high street, runs parallel to Church Square and is sandwiched by the town's second shopping centre known as The Hardshaw Centre. The other main shopping streets in the town centre include the more traditional small store based Bridge Street, Duke Street and Westfield Street populated by independent specialists. Church Square was bought by St Helens Council in 2017 for £26.6m as part of local regeneration plans.

The town centre has several supermarkets including mainstream stores such as Asda and Tesco, as well as smaller stores such as Lidl. Morrisons retain two stores located in the Eccleston and Sutton areas of the town. There is also a Tesco superstore in Earlestown, which is on a former Safeway site and many smaller Tesco Express and Tesco Metro stores. A new Tesco Extra store opened in October 2011 on the outskirts of the town centre to replace the existing Chalon Way superstore, which has now been taken over by new retail Home & Leisure outlet, The Range.

St Helens has two major retail parks, one on either side of the St Helens Linkway. The older of these, St Helens Retail Park, is home to several discount stores and wholesale retailers.

The larger Ravenhead Retail Park houses more large-scale mainstream retail stores, and a number of restaurants, fast food outlets and cafes. The same area (in particular the old United Glass Bottles site) has been used for development of the new St Helens RLFC stadium and the construction of a Tesco Extra supermarket, to replace the smaller Tesco supermarket in the town centre. At 140,000 square metres, this Tesco Extra store is one of the biggest in England

Major investment is transforming former industrial land for use as hotels, shopping areas and housing after an initial landscape grading and character assessment project was concluded in late 2005 by Land Use Consultants on behalf of St Helens Council.

Urban regeneration projects Since the millennium St Helens has become a focus for a whole borough scheme of Urban Regeneration initiatives in coordination with local Housing Authorities, Business and Art Projects in addition to European, Regional and Central Government funding such as the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, the North West Regional Development Agency and The Mersey Partnership as part of the European Regional Development Fund

The whole project is coordinated by St Helens Council under their umbrella corporate branding "St Helens; The Heart of the North West" with an emphasis on promoting the location of the town as a vital hub of the region, to encourage investment and the development of business links.

In 2007, the Brand New St Helens project was launched and published their Development Review Document. The report set out the achievements in the years since the millennium and set out the future development projects for the town including the wholly rebuilt College Campus, and Cowley Language College (formerly Cowley High). The document also lays out retail, leisure and tourism developments for the Town.

In 2009, a MultiAarea Agreement (MAA) was made with the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens agreeing to form part of the Liverpool City Region, a cross boundary cooperation of 5 adjoining authorities in Merseyside and the Halton Borough on strategic policy areas such as economic growth, transport, tourism, culture, housing, and physical infrastructure.

Local Projects such as "Re:new St Helens" operated in conjunction with Helena Housing was originally set up in 2006 in an effort to initially "make the Parr area of St Helens a better place to live, work and be part of". The scheme's success led to it being expanded to other identified areas in need of redevelopment including Four Acre (in Clock Face), Thatto Heath and the North of the Town Centre.

The Re:new projects coordinate a Partnership Board to meet the needs of local residents in conjunction with local service providers such as the Council, Local Education Authority, Local Healthcare, Housing Associations and the Police to help improve services, identify local priorities and make changes with an aim to tackle "the quality of life issues which matter most to local people". The scheme has been responsible for the redevelopment of The Duckeries and Gaskell Park in Parr that both achieved Green Flag status in 2008