EFT Group can build its £9m headquarters on Wight Moss Way. On 5 November Cabinet weighs a grant from £686,850 Aldi paid, which must be spent by October 2028.
EFT Group has planning permission for a new headquarters on Southport Business Park. Sefton Council puts the investment at £9 million. The site on Wight Moss Way, Kew, has stood empty for more than a decade.
Council planners approved the scheme, with conditions, on Friday 23 October. (Sefton planning portal, DC/2026/00222) The council announced the decision on Thursday. (Sefton Council, 29 October 2026)
The next step comes on Thursday 5 November. Cabinet will be asked to back the scheme with money Aldi paid the council in 2018, when it opened its store in Birkdale.
What will be built
The officer’s report on the application describes two parts. (Sefton Council, officer report)
- A two-storey headquarters of 2,460 square metres for EFT’s own staff. It holds offices, meeting rooms, training space, a staff gym, a dining area and a green roof terrace.
- 26 small light industrial units at the front of the site, each 7 metres by 15 metres with its own roller shutter door. The Cabinet report calls them speculative units to rent.
The headquarters would be 86 metres long and 10 metres high, clad in black with orange detailing. The office car park has 58 standard spaces, 5 accessible spaces and 7 electric vehicle charging bays. The offices would open from 7am to 6pm, Monday to Friday.
EFT, which works in construction, electrical, fire and security services, employs 147 people full time. It has outgrown its current base on Cobden Road, according to its planning statement. The site it is moving to covers about 2.09 hectares and was once a landfill, since capped. (Planning statement, DC/2026/00222)
Stewart Meechan, a director of EFT Group, said the investment was “firmly bedding our roots into Southport for the next 50 years”. The council says work is due to start in 2027, “subject to further arrangements”.
The Aldi money, and its deadline
This is the part of the story the council’s announcement only touches on.
In 2015 the council approved an Aldi store in Birkdale that took away employment floorspace. Aldi signed an undertaking to pay for the same amount of space to be built at Southport Business Park instead. It paid on 31 October 2018. The money has to be spent within ten years. (Sefton Council, Cabinet report for 5 November 2026)
That makes the deadline 31 October 2028. If the money is not spent on its purpose by then, it goes back to Aldi.
The report says the Birkdale store cost 2,290 square metres of employment floorspace. The EFT scheme would create 2,347 square metres.
Cabinet is asked to:
- support the development
- add £686,850 to the council’s capital programme, funded entirely by Section 106 money already received
- let a senior officer set the exact grant, with the Cabinet Member, on the advice of viability consultants
The grant is meant to fill the gap between what the scheme costs to build and what it would be worth. The figures behind it sit in a confidential appendix. A grant agreement would allow money to be clawed back if the promised space is not delivered. Aldi has told the council it supports the plan, the report says.
The report is blunt about why this site has needed help. Poor ground, a former tip under part of it, and local rents too low to make building pay have stalled the business park since European funding ended. Other investors have shown interest in the Section 106 money over the years. None got to a point where they could deliver. Turning EFT down at this late stage, the report says, “would almost certainly result in the loss of these monies”.
A separate bid for support is also in with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. Any money from that would need its own approval.
Roads, buses and the neighbours
Wight Moss Way changes as part of the scheme, the officer’s report says.
- EFT must build a new footway along the front of the site.
- The council will drop the buses and cycles only order on the unmade end of Wight Moss Way towards Blue Bird Close.
- A 7.5 tonne weight limit will stop through lorries heading into the housing estate beyond.
- No waiting at any time will apply on both sides of Wight Moss Way, for its whole length.
- The council will resurface the unadopted section and adopt it, at its own cost.
No articulated lorries will serve the site; EFT agreed to accept that as a condition.
No bus runs along Wight Moss Way at the moment. The nearest service is the hourly 15A on Blowick Moss Lane. The highways team did not ask EFT to pay for bus improvements this time.
Three neighbours wrote in. One asked that homes on Moss Road be included in the assessments. Others said the land should stay as woodland for wellbeing, given the nearby dementia centre, and raised noise, air and water quality. The planning officer said the land is allocated for employment in the Local Plan and that environmental effects had been assessed.
A councillor asked for building work to start no earlier than 9am, Monday to Saturday, to avoid the school run. They also asked that construction traffic be kept off Bluebird Close and Blowick Moss Lane. The officer said both points will be settled in a construction traffic management plan, which must be agreed before work starts.
What it means for you
- Jobs. The officer’s report recommended a condition requiring an employment and skills plan, so EFT would work with the council on local hiring, trainee places and work for local firms during construction.
- Small business space. The 26 units are built to let. If you run a trade or workshop business and need a unit in Southport, watch for them being marketed once construction starts.
- If you live nearby. Expect a contractor’s traffic plan before building begins. The changes to Wight Moss Way, including the weight limit and the parking ban, need their own traffic orders, which will be advertised for comment.
- Cabinet on 5 November decides the grant. The meeting is public, and the papers are on the council’s website.
The site is close to Kew Roundabout, where the main Southport Eastern Access works start on Monday 2 November. For other decisions across the borough, see our Southport planning news.
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