Views sought on 12,000-home Liverpool housing strategy

Does ‘development management’ and planning committee know of these ambitions to build all of these houses? Hardly anything is getting planning at the moment and they’re the reason why. Also, does the Council realise how low values are here, yet build costs are the same as other cities? It needs to get a grip on the reality of not being able to deliver of affordable housing, as well as all its other policy ambitions, such as all housing at M4(2), 10% at M4(3), NDSS, greater proportion of two beds. The stalemate with Accessibility requests for every single 1 bed to be a minimum of 1 bed 2 person 50sq.m. accommodation also needs nipping in the bud. In this context, this strategy is a waste of time as nothing will be built!

Inviting objections these consultations

This has been rambling on for long enough now. Just get on with it!

Always have to consult, are they not capable of designing good homes , preferably terraced, and interspersing these with pocket parks. If only 11% of homes built in the last 5 years are classed as affordable then whose fault is that surely the Housing Associations and the council who restrict building heights and listen to the NIMBYs who complain about every development. The vast bulk of the public know little about design and architecture , we only have to look at the rubbish that was built along Park Lane when you ask people what housing they want.

It’s been 84years

What about vacant council owned properties and land. Get them sold and get it built!

The main photo is Festival Gardens, I believe that cost £60m restore the site how can they expect to put 20% affordable housing there to justify that outlay. We hear the Council has lots of land available that can be developed but so have many rogue landowners who are sitting on land with planning permission , and hoardings up, but nothing ever happens.

The Garden festival site is prime real estate given its location and river views and should be treated as such . Any other large city would relish such a prime opportunity. The expensive land remediation works are complete so why no progress ? The city could run a design competition to attract outstanding designs and ensure this premier location does not end up looking like a bland area full of Mock Tudor . The city has numerous suitable sites for affordable housing which at 20% might prove problematic for developers. Please lets not waste this superb location

Liverpools covered in cheap and terrible affordable homes many empty and derelict.

Maybe just build nicer homes?

We will be living in a concrete jungle housing only being built for people who were not born on this country

Schools? Doctors? Shopping?

Festival gardens has the potential to add another 5000 cars 2 / house onto riverside drive which is already full of trucks and major congestion at rush hour. Those who buy will be car owners don’t try and predict they will all use public transport the nearest supermarket is miles away. Is the land safe from sink holes unlike other city developments! Where will the schools and medical facilities provide this large village with places.

Housebuilders develop the homes people want to buy, at the price points they can afford. The fact that 89% of those sold were, by the council’s counter-intuitive definition, ‘unaffordable’, tells you that the housing market in Liverpool is pretty robust. Any quick scoot around Rightmove tells you there’s not an affordability problem in Liverpool; there is, however, the issue of neighbourhood management shaping prices. Most people doing well will want to live in the south end, forsaking the north of the city and compounding its myriad issues. When some people complain that they can’t afford to buy a house in Liverpool, what they mean is they can’t afford to buy one in Lark Lane or off Allerton Road. Get the product and neighbourhood management right and you can attract people back to the north end – just look at the lovely new estates around Westminster Road. Problem is, many parents look at the performance of high schools in the north end and run a mile (or five).

Just get on with it. Endless consultations just delay build and increase cost.

Garden festival site should never have been earmarked for housing. As has already been said in previous comments the drive along this road is already congested and anyone who lives anywhere along this stretch often can sit for 5 minutes waiting to actually exit on to the road. Extremely busy as there is only 1 set of traffic lights at Aigburth Vale, then the next set is by the Coburg pub. 3 pedestrian crossing on a stretch or road that is several miles long is not good enough, never has been and no silly half baked plans to satisfy another 2000+ homes will alleviate existing issues never mind new ones if they build. Of course they can consult, but any feedback will be ignored as they have committed to a site that has already cost millions more than projected (nothing new there). So to save face, new houses built, most will be shared or private ownership due to the cost of developing, will cause more congestion and will be packaged as addressing the needs for housing despite ignoring the need for social housing (not affordable). Either way it will be more misery for the people that actually use this road who have had to endure years of repeated roadworks at the same locations St Michaels and the near 18months farcical development that was turning a car park into a coach park! Do they think we have forgotten the last plan to build social housing that quietly failed………

@ Anon 12.41pm, so £60m wasted on remediation for nothing.

What about they unfinished building that are an eye soar in the city instead building more get them finish first instead of wasting money

Homelessness and unaffordable housing isn’t a developer’s concern. Building houses for those who can afford isn’t worthy of this comment request. Planning aps need to be heard within the council and Borough. Nimby’s are the selfish individuals that turn a blind eye to today’s people. I pay £850 rent, wasted money. Family inheritance nil, infact minus.

And the council will get more tax. No thought towards overdevelopment, loss of green spaces and habitats. The new builds will not be affordable housing.

We don’t want social housing, we need council houses for young working class people at reasonable rents,a large part of building houses is buying the land if it belongs to the council there’s no charge to buy it, build three bed houses and smaller houses bungalows for pensioner’s, the lands there let’s get spades in the ground, go to kirkby an see how many houses were built in a short period of time,we need them now city’s like Liverpool need to stop building student property’s, if you come to huyton an prescot there’s new builds everywere and there’s hundreds of council house and flats been demolished and never replaced while the housing list is like the NHS waiting list getting bigger by the week, years ago when a housing estate was getting built there was hundreds of tradesmen an labourers on site all the time not just a hand full of men like you see now everywere you look there,s work to be done.

A mere 100 ‘affordable’ homes a year. Hardly an earth-shattering target!

Can’t build there? Its contaminated land that’s why all those houses are empty.

Meeting housing targets and developing suburban areas of Liverpool is a brilliant idea. I just want to assure land usage is appropriate, please make sure there are convenience stores and if it may be, mixed use developments similar to those seen in spain and much of europe. be different

Ed milliband might like to build a solar panel farm on that land instead.

The Garden Festivals site is perfect for high density housing. What is needed is a tram down the strand up to it, and linking with Liverpool Waters and the new Everton stadium. More housing = cheaper housing. As others have said, the council need to be quicker processing applications, less concerned with height (design and quality being more important), and a plan for linking things together.

Yes a tram needed to the old garden festival site plus high quality housing and flats

Has the housing committee considered co-housing projects or affirdable housing specifically for independent older people in its plans? What are affordable rent/ purchase prices these days? Those I have seen are not within my reach as an OAP.

I cannot understand why they would put affordable housing here – when it would be the one area where would get huge returns to live in such a beautiful location. LCC mare not asking for affordable housing on the development on the ‘priests house’ on SFX in Woolton – appreciate less properties – it just seems ridiculous to build affordable here – like when they allowed the call centre to go on the river front – why – who is thinking all this through. Yes agree Riverside Drive is over trafficked, agree need a tram or something. But the planning consultant and transport consultant will just put that the Voi electric scooters will be used and all properties will have a cycle store – then its a done deal. When really everyone will drive!

There absolutely needs to be a policy compliant level of affordable housing at this site. Imagine the audacity of refusing applications that do not provide 20% affordable housing due to “greedy developer profits” and then trying to avoid providing it on a Council-owned site to maximise revenues. It simply wouldn’t wash. Those who write the rules absolutely must abide by them, otherwise it undermines the whole point. Not to mention, we need balanced and mixed communities – why shouldn’t people of all economic backgrounds get to live in nice areas?

A tram line? Really? The site sits between two metro stops on the Northern Line.

@Anon 3.31pm, you can put certain people in nice areas but they don’t stay nice for long. On the other hand you can get rundown areas where people with a bit of money or with certain standards live and these become much improved.

There is so much toxicity and snobbery in some of these comments. Why are people assuming that people who need affordable housing are somehow undesirable neighbours or not suitable to be part of the surrounding community? Affordable housing comes in several tenures. Occupying an affordable home is not a reflection on the person.

If you want to live in nice areas you have to pay like the rest of us

@Anon , Snobbery, that maybe the case in some quarters but let’s look at the reverse. The are plenty of people in this city who can’t stand gentrification , you hear it from councillors on the planning committee, they use the term derogatively about those who don’t adhere to the local working class perceived culture. There are certain local areas which have unofficial committees who talk about keeping things local and rejecting outsiders,and developers too , and with that attitude some areas will remain poor and rundown, a situation which is not good for the city.