Homes England picked for Liverpool’s Canning Place regen
The government’s housing agency has been selected as the preferred bidder for the site, located next to Liverpool ONE and viewed as one of the region’s most attractive development opportunities.
Merseyside’s police and crime commissioner has chosen Homes England out of 13 bidders for the 2.64-acre Canning Place, which houses the police force’s former HQ.
Homes England has submitted proposals to turn the site into an “ambitious, high-quality, mixed-use waterfront development, likely to comprise residential, hotel and retail, leisure and commercial spaces”, according to Merseyside Police.
Once the sale is completed later this year, Homes England will select a development partner to bring the scheme forward.
Eamonn Boylan, chief executive of Homes England, said: “Canning Place is a historic site in a prime location on Liverpool’s iconic waterfront. The acquisition of the former Merseyside Police headquarters would present a unique opportunity for Homes England to add to the significant legacy of regeneration in the area.”
Canning Place encompasses the former seven-floor headquarters building which is more than 135,000 square feet, an annex, car park and a gatehouse.
Merseyside Police started vacating its 135,000 sq ft Canning Place office in 2021 when the force’s £48m Rose Hill headquarters completed.
Deeming the site as surplus to requirements, Colliers was appointed to market the site for sale last year. Mace and Placed also advised the PCC.
Proceeds from the sale will be used to enhance the police estate as part of an ongoing 12-year investment plan.
Merseyside’s police and crime commissioner Emily Spurrell said: “Homes England submitted the bid which provided best value meaning I will now be proceeding with the legal process to sell the site to them.
“Canning Place occupies a prime location on our beautiful waterfront but sadly the building was no longer fit for policing purposes, and I made a commitment to selling it to generate much-needed money which we can now invest in Merseyside Police’s stations to create better workplaces for our officers and staff.
“My focus is now completing the sale in order that Homes England can submit their proposals to the planners at Liverpool City Council with the hope this key site can be brought back into use for the benefit of local people and visitors to our region as soon as possible.”
Glad to see a great site in safe ownership. Let’s hope that Homes England work closely with LCC and the CA to identify a high quality development partner for such a visible site.
By Anonymous
Makes no sense – why not sell straight to the open market – not sure what Homes England will add apart from spending stacks of tax payers money and delaying any start on site considerably! The worlds gone mad!!!!
By Bash the Housebuilder
It’s great news until you get a gut feeling it will be another development partner who will create barely any design jobs in the LCR on this flagship and important scheme.
By Sid Carter
Public sector selling to public sector who will then undertake another beauty parade. Yet another site where development is years off joining Festival Gardens, Kings Dock, Chinatown, Littlewoods…….
By Little Joe
This site is an endless merry-go-round. It’s been available for years and officially for sale for around a year. So having searched for a developer, it will be sold later in the year, to a party who will then run another competition to find a developer.
The waste of time and money is actually scandalous.
By Mike
Excellent news. This means any development will be sustainable, have the right mix of uses and have spades in the ground much faster.
By Anonymous
This really shows how far Liverpool has fallen with big developer interest. Fair play to a government entity taking it on but this is the best site in Liverpool and should be attracting the big boys.
By Anonymous
This is good news, hopefully Liverpool Planning Committee don’t scupper this.
By Anonymous
This site must be one of the prime development sites in the Liverpool City region if not ‘the prime site’ and I just hope that some real imagination is used in the designs of the buildings planned for the site and we don’t just end up with some carbon copies of other clusters of buildings that you see around the world. Liverpool as a city deserves the best in design and functionality and hopefully we will get it on this site. With KEIE and Beetham hopefully at one end of the Strand and this development at the other end, who knows we might even allow ourselves to think that planning wise Liverpool might at long last might be moving forwards. I continue to live in hope more than expectation though!
By Brendan R
Obviously exciting news but as we know Homes England are involved with Festival Gardens and that’s not moving at pace, in fact all these years later and we’ve still seen no designs, let alone a planning application.
By Anonymous
For those with concerns it is likely that Homes England will, rather than stall development on the site, make a non-viable/marginally viable site actually viable/attractive for the mentioned “development partner” by dealing with upfront costs such as outline approval/permission in principle, demolition and site remediation. That should also hopefully allow for certain planning obligations to also be met by the “development partner” down the line.
HE have successfully done this across the North West and around the country and one would assume there should be little doubt of it being achieved here.
By JohnMac
Homes England owned Kings Dock. Which is also an amazing site. That sits undeveloped.
By Again
5 star Hotel best for this location
By Tom
Rinse and repeat, keep the public sector merry-go-round turning wasting taxpayers money and delaying it further.
By Ann Field