Torgut Olgun is soon to be opening his third restaurant in Huyton village.
Still a construction site for the most part, he points over toward the space in the middle of the room where an ornate bar will be fitted.
Just outside of the window is a cluster of eateries, with a barber shop dotted in between.
READ MORE: Government rejects £20m bid to improve Huyton village centre
Mr Olgun’s first two restaurants are amongst them.
The first of his, Eton Place, opened three years ago and it was the very first restaurant to open in the Village.
Until then Huyton village had based itself around a market before gravitating towards an expansion of its highstreet with independent and established retailers.
The top end of the Village, nearest the station, already feels like a different place to what it was only three years ago.
Alongside Mr Olgun’s Turkish and Spanish eateries, there is another bar, a coffee shop and noodle bar.
Further down Derby Road in the central square, a new food hall called The Common has recently opened.
Among the main row of retail shops there remains a healthy footfall for a mid weekday afternoon, but it’s the top end of Derby Road that has the strongest sense of place and purpose, signifying a changing town centre and one more conscious of its evening offer.
Speaking about recent changes in the town, Mr Olgun told the ECHO: “We’re seeing many new faces, especially at night time.
“When I first opened, after five o'clock there was nobody around here. But now you'll see people heading out at 9, 10 O'clock just coming in to use the restaurants and bars. It's bringing extra people.
“I can see a good future here in Huyton, I can visualise in my mind how it's going to be in 10 years.
“I think it's going to get better and better and it will change the way people live and view the area.”
There’s clearly a sense of optimism, even if Huyon has been overlooked by the government in the recent levelling up fund announcement.
This means Knowsley Council now has to look elsewhere for £20m to help accelerate its 10 year regeneration masterplan.
Priority 1
The £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund was established to support town centre and high street regeneration, local transport projects, and cultural and heritage assets.
Despite Knowsley being a Government ‘Priority 1’ area, meaning somewhere that required the funding most, the bid was not approved by central Government at last week's budget.
Knowsley Council insists its 10 year regeneration masterplan is still on track and will look to submit a second bid to the fund and also seek alternative funding sources.
Cllr Tony Brennen, cabinet member for regeneration and economic development said: “The Government has previously ignored Knowsley’s need for regeneration funding through their Future High Streets Fund and their Towns Fund and we can now add Levelling Up Fund to that list.
“We remain committed to delivering our ambitious 10 year development plan and will continue to source funding to support the plan.
“There will be no changes to the plan in terms of what we will deliver. It may just be the timescales that change.
“Levelling up funding would have really helped to accelerate delivery of the plans for Huyton enabling us to do a lot more early preparatory infrastructure work to help bring in new investment more quickly.”
10 year masterplan
The regeneration plans look to radically change Huyton village and the surrounding area.
Aspects include demolishing the current council offices and other buildings off Archway Road to clear the way for a new development that would include a new council headquarters, shops, flats and a hotel.
There would also be major changes to public spaces in the town centre, with a new village green planned for the centre of the new development and links to Derby Road and the bus station.
The council has also proposed building an event space and a “health and wellbeing garden” as part of the overhaul of the town centre.
Progress
In the centre of the village work has already been carried out to improve the shop fronts at the top end of Derby Road - one of which being Mr Olgun and Huyton’s Village’s first restaurant, Eton Place.
One of the refurbished shops is Stitch Perfect, clothing alterations specialists.
Fran Young, its owner, has run the business for 15 years and previously operated from a stall in Huyton market.
She credits the renovated high street for a recent upturn in footfall and business.
Ms Young told the ECHO: “There’s been a massive upturn since they renovated the shop fronts.
“A lot of people will sit outside the restaurants and bars and have a meal or a drink and then come into us on a Monday morning after looking around and seeing the sign.
“You now have people popping in saying how nice [Huyton Village has] started looking.
“I think there would be further success if they were to try to replicate this across more of the town. It will really bring more people in if the regeneration continues.”
However Ms Young is aware that the upturn isn’t shared throughout the entirety of the village.
She highlights where aspects of its high street retail offer are struggling, with the village’s Boots store soon to close.
She said: “The resilience in the town is in the people who can provide a service, like the hairdressers, the barbers, the jewellers who do repairs."
Ms Young agrees that offering a bespoke experience and expertise is part of the fightback of the high street against its nationwide decline.
She added: “As long as you can offer something you can't get online then you've got good chance of survival.
“I think businesses like us who provide a service should just be able to survive, but I’m not sure the big retailers will.”
A village divided
Currently, Huyton is a tale of two villages.
Where the top end of Derby Road is attracting outdoor diners on a crisp November afternoon, other parts of the village aren’t yet part of the renaissance.
A few hundred yards away, Ellen Cookson is tending to the flowers at Rosie’s florist in a quiet Sherbourne Square.
There are a few neighbouring shops open, but the square's perimeter is interrupted by shutters pulled tightly to the ground.
Ms Cookson has worked on the flower stall for 20 years and lived in Huyton all her life.
She fears that not all of the village is on an upward trajectory.
She told the ECHO: “Years ago it used to be so busy, but every year there's less and less people about. [Fewer] customers.
“I'm hoping things will pick up. Doing the shopfronts up and making it more inviting for people is the way to go. But it can't just be on one side of town.
“We need more people about. Nobody is passing through the square anymore.”
Facing Rosie’s Florist is Harper’s Furniture and Beds.
Employees Debbie Harris and Carl Harper share Ms Cookson’s view that the village is heading in two directions, one positive and one negative.
Ms Harris said: “We're losing a lot of the big name retailers. So you're not getting people in the daytime. It's more of a night time when people are visiting.
“[Huyton Village] does need the planned changes, but you do need people to shop in the daytime. The more the big names move out of Huyton the less people are going to come.”
Mr Harper is in agreement.
He told the ECHO: “I think there needs to be attempts to try and spread regeneration everywhere and try to bring people down to [Shelborne square] too.
“When they're shutting big retailers like Boots, that's what a lot of people are coming into the village for.
“So instead they're coming in at night, and that’d be bad for businesses like us. It's a mixture that's needed. If it was all restaurants and a couple of shops I don't think it would be good.”
Next door to Harper’s is Melanie Louise Childrenswear.
Nick Manning is the owner and has been based in Huyton Village for the last 15 years.
He’s seen first hand how it's shifted away from its market and retail offer to bloom with new hospitality ventures.
He told the ECHO: “It's changed quite a lot really. In the last few years you've seen it going from retail to the more hospitality side of things. We never used to have any bars or restaurants here, now there's quite a few. Which is good.
“But for me, I'd like more retail. Just to get people out in the day. I found a lot of the hospitality offer is making people come in the evening [when businesses are closed].”
Mr Manning points to the entrance to Sherbourne Square and suggests it is not fulfilling its potential as the centrepoint of the village.
He added: “If you look at the entrance into this square, it's the main focal point into the village. You've got your four corners. One is The Common, the other three corners are effectively empty. Two being here and one the covid test centre.
“Your flagship stores, you need them on these corners. It's really good what the council has done, but I think it could be better. It doesn't look right when you've got five shops looking one way and 30 of them like this.”
Where the top end of Derby Road has undergone transformational renovation, these works haven’t yet been able to be carried out throughout the rest of the town centre.
The block of shops that have been renovated were purchased and are now owned by Knowsley Council.
Sherbourne Square remains a privately owned shopping centre, so achieving a uniformity within the village has not yet been possible.
When asked about Knowsley Council’s plans to expand the regenerative works already carried out on Derby Road and whether there needs to be a greater balance between retail and hospitality, Cllr Brennan said: “Our plans do extend to cover the whole of the Village Centre, including Sherbourne Square.
“This is privately owned and we are working with the owner regarding potential future improvements and uses.
“We are actively promoting Huyton Village Centre to developers for a range of uses – leisure, retail, commercial offices – and have a number of prime sites in the heart of the village centre to suit a range of uses.
“Many are construction ready and two more sites soon will be. We are doing everything possible to attract more shops and services – high street names and independents – into Huyton Village Centre providing greater choice for everyone who lives, works or visits Huyton.”
It is hoped that the expanded hospitality offer will be one new avenue for job creation in the town, something which nearly two thirds of respondents said there needed to be more of in a recent survey about the future of the village.
In many ways, the top end of Derby Road is evidence of successful regeneration led by Knowsley Council.
It’s the changes in this area that leave business owners like Turgut Olgun “optimistic” about what the next 10 years will bring.
But with Huyton snubbed plenty of times before in terms of government funding, accelerating the vision for the town hangs in the balance
What is certain, when large-scale regeneration secures the necessary funding to take place, it will take place in a village far different from what it was only three years ago.
Just how many of its retailers will be there to witness it remains to be seen.
