£17m deal completes for ex-Merseyside Police HQ

So who were the rival bidders? Surely some big hitters were in there.
4 years since the Police re-located and at least the same before that when they knew they were moving.
Nothing dynamic about that.

Thank you Julia!

At last Julia they have made a decision,Cheers…

I was just about to hunt down our past conversation and post the update! Glad you saw it.

May 26, 2026 at 12:28 pm

By Julia Hatmaker

Nothing sums up Liverpool like this site… on and on we go, with no concrete proposals. The site seems to have been sold on the back of a long awaited competition to an organisation who will now run another competition. So, give it another year and we might start another round of consultation.
It’s a load of faff when there are much more dynamic developers who could have had this built, if only it was sold years ago when first mooted. Frankly it’s depressing.

we need some commercial or business use for that site not more flats

The language in these statements fills me with utter resignation. I retire in seven years time and I doubt anything will have happened by then except another few consultations will have been held and several new ‘strategies’ will have been developed and will be sat on shelves somewhere.

“A high-quality, mixed-use residential-led development scheme” that could potentially include a hotel, shops, and leisure facilities… Really? Didn’t see that one coming at all… Do we need a stakeholder engagement strategy for this – there’s something next door called LiverpoolONE that seems to have done this kind of thing very successfully? Love to know who the bidders were that lost out to HE and why.

It would be good if this building could be re-furbished to house the many homeless in the city. If I was responsible for running Liverpool I would be deeply ashamed at number of homeless – one is too many.

So, 13 private companies have been crowded out by the public sector, whose funding comes from an impost on the profits earned by those companies. How is that morally right or desirable?

This needs some serious looking at. Not a chance any private sector bidder would as anywhere near this price. Whoever did the red book needs to dust off their PI certificates!! A crazy use of public money by an agency that really has no idea what it is doing. LinkedIn posting about how great they are doesn’t mean anything in the real world! Crazy stuff.

They have just bought a liability, who acted for Homes England?

Worth 4 – 7m.

Wow – that is some price paid. Its a shame we will never know where the underbidders were, which I anticipate would be well below what the public sector have paid to the public sector.

7-10 years before any construction work starts on this site

The negativity of the comments below demonstrate why Liverpool is often its own worst enemy. Let’s see how the proposals develop over the next 12 months

You could just imagine such a prime site like this in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Salford etc. Something very ambitious would be on the cards but this is Liverpool. The usual doom- merchants will be out in their droves. You’ll get those who’ll be advocating for green space or a few bungalows. I kid you not. A prominent mixed use building would be nice. Something tall would be ideal in such a prime location.

Ideally that MSCP needs to be demolished and incorporated in to the design in partnership with the owner Landsec, so its more cohesive and could straighten Park Lane to line up with Custom House Place and make the Baltic Triangle more accessible.

This needs to be dense, a tower element would be good (between 35-45 storeys, perhaps both) , high quality materials – no red brick or random plastic cladding, include office space, retail and leisure, residential, a flexible arts venue would be good, a walk in Police station, ground floor retail and restaurants. Something like St Michaels by Relentless in Manchester would look great here.

On a wider scale, the bus station and law courts could be relocated to make this scheme and Liverpool One more connected and permeable.

Get these right and it would be amazing and create thousands of jobs and homes.

So now we have a tax payer funded quango in Homes England, who will consult with brain dead Rotherham and the talk will go on and on. All talk no action from the public sector.

Anon @ 12.51pm, refurb the current building for homeless, are you serious?
We have thousands of empty homes in Liverpool so why pick a prime site next to our best shopping area to house the homeless. Not being unkind but have you seen what goes on outside the YMCA on Leeds St, do you want that in Liverpool One.
Not all, but a number of the street beggars in Liverpool City Centre have homes and for those genuinely homeless there is plenty of support and outreach. Our city needs to develop its economy and become a city that people want to move to and work, therefore we need something worthy at the ex Police HQ.

Why, when there are a significant number of other bidders for this site, does Homes England intervene? They do not deliver (unless I have missed something). So Ms Gillespie should offer up a very clear statement as how Homes England are going to bring forward development and what her timelines are.

This seems a good outcome. Homes England can’t renege on any commitments to affordable housing nor placemaking like green space and transport improvements. And, unlike a private developer, they are not incentivised to land bank for 15 years to benefit from rising land prices, like Peel.

More public sector waffle.

“beating 13 rival bids for the waterfront plot.” Will the PCC show the documents etc for each bid, i highly doubt it will claim “commercial confidentiality” and refuse an FOI in regards to this

Look forward to the announcement of the consultant team that has barely a footprint in the Liverpool City Region.

Long overdue!

This is OUR city centre, what we want is facilities that everyone can use – entertainment facilities, sports facilities, cultural facilities, leisure facilities – things that people can get pleasure from, not more overpriced apartments. People don’t go to the city centre, and tourists don’t come to our city, to look at apartments. It would be better to build something like Sheffield’s famous Winter Gardens than build more apartments. Why don’t the Council ever listen to what the people want rather than always taking their ‘we know best’ approach?

Who remembers back in 2021 the £2 million to fund the initial development stage for The Pool – a transformative waterfront project – on this site – Chancellor Rishi Sunak (prior to becoming the PM) announced in October 2021 two separate financial investments for the city which will inject a new lease of life in and around the city’s docks, and cement Liverpool’s ambition to put culture at the heart of major regeneration projects. The Tate and Museums of Liverpool getting a further £20m. Tate and Museums have progressed with their funding. Perhaps a follow up Julia Hatmaker to see if and where the £2million on ‘The Pool’ was spent ?

Those comments referring to 35-45 storeys on this site clearly haven’t encountered LCC’s planning department!

Why the hell did they build it in the first place. Seems like a incredible waste of taxpayers money.

If the plan is for a high-quality, mixed-use residential-led development scheme – which today would presumably have to include a significant % of larger housing units – at least make sure that it includes a more healthy ratio of parking spaces to housing units (at least 1:5 and preferably better). If this doesn’t we’ll just end up with another apartment block with too many unoccupied properties.
Families want a place to park at least 1 car but probably would be happy to use a quality local transport system – can we have one for the entire city – for short journeys.

How about cancelling the pet project of a new park on Pall Mall and instead use the S106 money to put a garden space like Sheffield’s Winter Gardens (see Steve’s comment May 26 9:21 pm).
This is site is still City Centre North but a green space here would be much more appreciated by visitors and residents alike.

@ 9.21pm “This is our city”, well it is but look at the low standard of councillors people vote in. Also “the people” don’t always know best or else why have we got ridiculous inner city suburban semis all along Park Lane etc when previously we had solid tenements, but “the people ” had them knocked down. We had a great city planner/ architect once called Lancelot Keays who knew how to design buildings that looked good and were appropriate in the inner city.
The ex Police HQ needs to be mostly residential, part retail, part hotel, with of course leisure. The suggestion of a Winter Garden is a decent one but not in this location, however there is vacant land opposite Moorfields Station some of which is over tunnels and therefore would be ideal for a park or Winter Garden. The value of high density city centre residential is obvious as it brings footfall and helps to bring custom to shops, bars, etc. People must have notice that continental cities have a buzz about them because they are highly populated in their centres.

Wow, such absolute rubbish doom and gloom peddled by so many. Some people need to get a grip and wait and see. None of you know anything in relation to potential outcomes so please stop acting like you are some kind of experts. A park here is a waste and building it next to Chavasse Park and across from the wide open Salthouse dock and dockside walks would create a separation from the city when it should be knitting it together. A 35 plus storey building would be out of place and 8s never going to happen. A dense range of different heights however (10 to 25) is a different matter altogether and would work. This needs to knit the bottom of Park Lane and Canning place back together and back into Liverpool one. I agree that demolishing the car park reintegration a new one into the development would be ideal. I look forward with real anticipation to what is proposed, as should everybody else with an interest in or love for the city, without the dour rantings that are now as tedious as the anti scouse rhetoric we still get from thick uninformed idiots.

The link below was the original culturally led transformation proposal, “The Pool”, which helped unlock the £2m Central Government funding package in 2021 for the Outline Business Case process.

https://www.k2architects.co.uk/project/the-pool/

It remains one of the most significant development opportunities in Liverpool City Centre, and hopefully, whatever comes forward next retains a strong blend of culture, education, and new homes as part of the vision.

It will be interesting to see what emerges next through Homes England and the wider development process.

Do you think they may keep the shooting range, would make a good club ,or facility for training young people

Homes England appear to move at a snail’s pace, we are still awaiting spades in the ground at the Festival Gardens site. The chosen partners are meant to be on site in 2027 but have we actually seen any planning applications yet? Given that Liverpool Planning is so pedestrian the chances of any application being accepted that promptly are slim.