Plans to create a billion-pound urban village on the fringes of Grosvenor’s Liverpool One development were in disarray this week after the first phase of the project collapsed into administration.
The Windsor Group is proposing 3,000 homes alongside 70,000 sq ft of leisure, retail and offices overlooking Wapping Dock in Liverpool’s historic Baltic Triangle in what would be the city’s largest ever private housing development.
Work had begun on the £50m first phase on the former site of ship chandler Joseph Lamb Sons, comprising three blocks containing 340 apartments and underground parking.
However, the development site was finally abandoned this week after administrators were called in following a lengthy contractural dispute between Windsor and Laing O’Rourke.
Little work has been carried out at the site since last August when Laing O’Rourke removed almost 200 builders in a row believed to have been over the timing of payments by the developer.
Sources close to the development said the administrator would now seek a buyer for the partially finished site.
Speaking to the Liverpool Daily Post, Roger Darwin, director of Windsor Developments Liverpool, denied that the entire project had been placed in jeopardy: “Our interests in the Baltic Triangle are at an advanced stage of being restructured, and to this end we are bringing in additional partners.
“In the interim, by agreement with our bankers, an administrator as been appointed on the Hurst Street Project (phase one) to insure an orderly transition.
“This has no impact on any other of our projects within the Baltic Triangle. The Baltic Triangle projects are a huge enterprise to which we remain committed.”
