After a government-led intervention over governance, Liverpool City Council recently got its powers back. Metro mayor Steve Rotheram believes the city region has now turned a corner – and its built environment can benefit, he says.
“We’ve had some difficulties, in all honesty, including reputational damage that slowed the development down,” says Rotheram. “But we don’t want to go out and beg anybody to come here. We want Liverpool city region to be the place that developers are really attracted to because we have all of the assets, all of the means, all of the political will to ensure that any potential projects are successful.”
Following re-election earlier this year, Rotheram tells EG he is focusing on facilitating opportunities in the region for developers to work in partnership with the city council, surrounding councils and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.
“You can actually see now that a lot of developers who have never been here before are very keen to speak about coming into Liverpool,” he says.
“Also, those who decided for a decade or so not to come and work here are now interested in once again setting up a business in the region.
“The opportunities that exist in the Liverpool city region outstrip anywhere else in the whole country. I think they will have massive returns for developers but also for the communities in which those projects are built.”
Hollywood of the North
One of the largest redevelopment projects in the city region has seen public and private sectors joining forces to give Liverpool’s former film and TV studios a new lease of life.
Social developer Capital & Centric is waiting for the council to give the nod for a 270,000 sq ft media campus on the site of the former Littlewoods building. The £70m retrofit plans were lodged in November last year and a decision is expected this autumn. The council is the freeholder of the site, with the ownership at the end of development still a point for discussion.
Rotheram says: “I think any regeneration has to be sympathetic to the original concept of an area and a building. Littlewoods had huge employment numbers, lots of people worked here in the film industry and it will be again flipped into a campus that is going to employ around 3,000 people. That’s a real synergy between the old and the new.”
The city region is also home to a pharma cluster, in which AstraZeneca, CSL Seqirus, TriRx and Pharmaron operate. A new 10-year plan is expected to advance the city region’s life sciences sector further through the creation of facilities and providing business and innovation support, while training a new generation of talent.
Most recently, Sciontec has doubled down on its vision for Liverpool lab development, unveiling the second phase of Hemisphere in the city’s Knowledge Quarter. The developer is set to create 350,000 sq ft of laboratory and workspace, to be known as Hemisphere Two, adjacent to the 172,000 sq ft Hemisphere One, which was approved in 2022.
Elsewhere, at Sci-Tech Daresbury, progress is under way on a £24m second phase of lab and office space expansion, known as Violet, with a duo of new buildings totalling 90,000 sq ft. The £17.8m first phase was completed in January 2023, featuring 43,000 sq ft of grade-A office and innovation space across three buildings.
Dock working
Central Docks is the city’s largest brownfield site and the location for a proposed neighbourhood within the wider Liverpool Waters masterplan, projected to unlock more than £500m in private investment through the provision of a public park and 2,350 new homes.
Last month, Peel Waters submitted a revised plan to the council, more than a decade on from the approval of the initial masterplan, unveiling its £5.5bn vision to transform the historic northern docks. The updated masterplan incorporates Everton’s new stadium and includes more public green spaces and dockside open space. It also has a more diverse and affordable housing offer. The move came after Homes England committed to support the regeneration of the city’s northern docklands through a £55m investment.
Bootle, the closest town to the Liverpool Waters project, is also set to get a makeover. It is expected to get a connection to the city’s northern docks via a boat taxi from the canal at Everton Stadium.
Last month, Sefton Council kicked off the town centre revamp with the demolition of the Strand shopping centre, a £20m project that was given the go-ahead late last year. The redevelopment will include a vibrant mix of retail, leisure, education and health facilities alongside public spaces and enhanced access to the canal. The local authority purchased the site in 2017 for £32.5m.
Rotheram says: “Businesses come and work in partnerships to develop projects across the whole of the city region.
“There’s lots of really good things that are happening here, it’s not just about the visitor economy anymore – although the visitor economy is strong and it will continue to grow.”
Images © Liverpool City Council; Paul Greenwood/Shutterstock
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