Only the sound of occasional hammering within the Cammell Laird shipyard interrupts a bright and peaceful afternoon on Birkenhead’s waterfront.
But a few hundred metres away, inside Start Yard, the whirring coffee machine is hard at work fuelling a cluster of creative and tech start ups. Workers are strewn across the cafe, laptops in hand, while the talk from an open-sided conference room is drowned out by music coming from communal speakers.
The business accelerator’s founder, Chris Lee, tells us there’s a waiting list to rent office space within the converted warehouse. It’s a similar story for when the venture expands in the coming months, with plans to incorporate a bar and food market