Liverpool City Council has submitted a planning application for a new £50m cruise terminal on the River Mersey.

It will mean Steam Packet ferries will have to relocate from their traditional Pier Head site to a new terminal down river at Princes Half-Tide Dock.

Tynwald voted in July last year to purchase a 236-year-lease from the Peel Group for a price of up to £3.5m.

The government has yet to give a figure for the cost of designing and constructing the facility - although a price of £20m-plus has previously been suggested.

But Liverpool City Council, announcing a planning application for its new cruise line terminal, refers to a figure of £30m for the replacement Isle of Man ferries berth.

It said it is ’gearing up to create a £20m link road to extend Leeds Street to the waterfront to support a new £30m Isle of Man ferry terminal’.

The planning application for a facility to cater for the world’s biggest cruise ships includes the controlled removal of Princes Jetty and the construction of a state of the art passenger terminal, based on a suspended deck structure in the river.

It will be complete with passport control, lounge, café, toilets, taxi rank and vehicle pick up point.

The application is expected to be heard by the council’s Planning Committee in January 2018. If approved, site preparation at Princes Dock is expected to start in spring next year.

Further planning applications could potentially a 200 room hotel and 1,700 space multi-storey car park.

Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, said this would be one of the city’s most important regeneration projects of this decade.

He said: ’We want to provide the next generation of super liners and their passengers a world class welcome with a five star experience.

’A new cruise facility will also be a huge boost to our plans to regenerate the North Liverpool docklands and create thousands of new jobs.’