City council plans to invest £250,000 in Morecambe's Eden Project North

The council’s Labour cabinet, which discussed the investment at its meeting on December 4, is now calling on members of other political groups to support the proposal, which must be agreed at the full council meeting on December 19.

Project partners, Lancaster University, Lancashire Enterprise Partnership, Lancashire County Council are also each being asked to contribute £250,000, and the Government pledged £100,000 towards the plans in the recent Budget.

The money will be used to help fund design and planning of the scheme, which would be developed on city council owned land on Morecambe promenade.

Labour group and council leader, Cllr Eileen Blamire, said: “We have all been impressed and enormously excited by the emerging proposals for Eden Project North.

“If this scheme happens it will have a transformative impact for Morecambe and the wider area.

“Of course, £250,000 is a significant amount of money. But if the attraction comes anywhere near to drawing the estimated 8,000 visitors to our district every day this will be recouped many times over by the local economy over the years.

“As well as the 500 jobs likely to be created by the scheme itself, the wave of tourism it will hopefully generate will support other local businesses and boost our ambitious regeneration plans.

“That’s why we are urging other political groups to get behind these plans at the full council meeting.”

Cabinet also agreed that the council’s cross-party overview and scrutiny committee should be asked to look at the proposed scheme more broadly as part of its work programme.