Exciting new details have been revealed about plans to create the "modern-day version of Port Sunlight" - including for a conference centre, drone taxis and homes "built for the future".
The proposals would see the Heath Business and Technical Park in Runcorn become a sustainable and futuristic environment, and the 20th Century equivalent of the Wirral area - one of the world’s most famous “model villages” for workers, where they can “live, work and play".
Earlier this year, business and technical park operator SOG revealed plans for the exciting Cheshire development to include a monorail and driverless cars, as well as hundreds of homes and business and community facilities.
The project - worth upwards of £200m - builds on the regeneration of the old ICI headquarters campus, now Heath Park Business and Technical Park, and proposes to "embrace wider responsibilities" to community and environment.
It will incorporates the current park plus neighbouring vacant land.
John Lewis, managing director of SOG Group, has revealed more details about the potential plans that include a "mid-size" conference centre.
That may in some way incorporate the existing Runcorn Town Hall - and "complement" the ACC in Liverpool and venues such as the Lowry in Manchester.
He said: "It wouldn't be of a major scale. People want exhibitions but the exhibition centres are too big. No one builds mid-size exhibition centres and Runcorn is so well located. It's 200 miles from Glasgow, 200 miles from Edinburgh, 200 miles from London, 210 miles from Dublin.
"We are absolutely in the centre of the UK. We have road links and rail links that no one can match."
He also wants the project to help increase interest in Runcorn - meaning it's not only a place where "you jump on the train to go to London".
He said: "It's going to be a destination in itself - where you get off the train and socialise and work. Linking to the Heath, station and to the town hall, there's so many things that could be done here as we're so well connected.
"The opportunity to develop intelligently using every square inch of space wisely is now better than ever before."
On other exciting, futuristic ideas, Mr Lewis said: "Drones will play a part in the way we live in society in the next 20 years. They've already got drone taxis in Dubai. The opportunity of introducing technology in a manner that will enhance our lives is upon us right now.
"If you're looking to a place for tomorrow, you've [also] got to take into account things such as driverless cars. They're not just going to be modern tech, they're going to reduce the requirement of parking, which takes up a lot of land."
The homes at the Heath will be "designed to be repurposed" - and relevant for the technology of tomorrow, "able to be changed relatively easily".
Mr Lewis's words come after the Royal Institute of British Architects held a competition for entrants to come up with conceptual design ideas for the park, challenging them to "rethink the future of place".
The panel of judges included influential architects and designers across the UK, with the winner creating a "truly 21st century sustainable campus".
The winning design, for which a feasibility study has now begun, "re-imagined in detail every aspect of The Heath to be a world leading sustainable, resilient place with a blueprint that would deliver economic, social and environmental wellbeing".
Mr Lewis said he hopes work will begin in February 2022, with it set to last up to 15 years, and he wants to create a scheme that can be "replicated across the world".
"I'm at a stage now where the Heath has to be no more a regeneration story, now it's a development story," he explained.
"This must happen. It's got to happen in this country, we've got to be more ambitious and attract this investment so it influences how we design things. We are trying to achieve a better place for tomorrow."
He said he was confident his ambitious plans will become a reality, not least because, unlike many other similar schemes, he is both the developer and land owner - and a "committee of one".
"I want to do it, I own it all and I'm working closely with the planners. It's identified by the Metro Mayor [Steve Rotheram] as a beacon project, and there's a really good chance everything I'm saying could materialise.
"Like Port Sunlight, we want it to be a success over 100 years. If we could do something like that for the next 50, that's a legacy I would very much like to leave.
"It's my job to make it happen, and that's what I'm setting out to do."
