Last year St Helens began piloting the City Growth Strategy, a 10-year economic action plan that aims to bring �300 million worth of public and private investment into the borough.

St Helens, along with four other areas, was chosen to pilot the scheme, launched by Chancellor Gordon Brown.

Local business leaders drawn up proposals for driving St Helens forward after following the business model devised at Harvard Business School. St Helens' vision suggests creating a series of multi-million pound tourist and leisure attractions, strengthen transport links, and bred a news sense of entrepreneurship in the borough.

Now the project is to be rolled out to Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Leicester, Derby, Luton, Park Royal, Wembley, White City and Portsmouth.

Andrew Smith, managing director of the ST Group and Chairman of City Growth St Helens, said: "We are delighted that our pioneering work here in St Helens has been recognised as such a success that the programme is being rolled out across these major cities.

"The board members had always said that one of the indicators we had done a good job would be a decision by the government that the programme should be seen as so worthwhile that more, bigger locations wanted to adopt the model."

Including in St Helens CGS are ideas to build a �60million multipurpose sports village, transforming Sherdley Park into an outdoor events arena and creating a �90million ' Kew gardens of the North'.

No money is attached to City Growth. It is the strategy itself which is devised to unlock the potential for investment in St Helens.