Birkenhead shipbuilder Cammell Laird has been awarded a £26m ($33m) order to construct a replacement for one of the two iconic Mersey passenger ferries.

Following more than a year of detailed negotiations, the contract award by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority calls for a low-carbon vessel of about 50m in length, designed in-house by Cammell Laird and built wholly at the Birkenhead yard.

Although the company has maintained a healthy workload of shiprepair and conversion business and hull section fabrication subcontracts, the ferry deal signifies its first newbuild project since the completion of the polar research ship Sir David Attenborough three years ago.

The new vessel for the Mersey crossing will supersede a ferry originally built over 60 years ago but which has undergone extensive upgrading and re-powering in the interim.