Light concerns scupper Liverpool office-to-resi plans

Seth Real Estate’s attempt to convert Imperial Court in the city centre into 106 apartments has been blocked by the city council due to some rooms having insufficient levels of daylight.

Liverpool City Council has rejected plans to convert the 10-storey former HMRC building off Exchange Street into flats because almost half of the rooms would not meet the required level of natural light.

“Out of a total of 240 habitable rooms, 118 rooms (49%) would not achieve the BRE’s respective lux target to 50% of their area”, according to an officer report.

A report compiled by consultant Proximity supporting the application argues that the light levels fall “within a perceived acceptable tolerance of the daylight target”.

Following changes to permitted development rights for office-to-resi conversions that came into force in 2024, Imperial Court would be eligible for redevelopment without planning permission providing it meets certain criteria around room size and light levels.

However, the developer would require approval for the change of use to go-ahead with the works and that cannot be given if targets for natural light are not met.

Seth Real Estate’s planned conversion would be carried out under permitted development rights with no external changes planned.

The 85,000 sq ft of vacant office space would be redeveloped into 73 one-bed flats and 33 with two bedrooms.

HMRC vacated the building and several others when it consolidated its Liverpool operations into the 270,000 sq ft India Buildings.

NC Architecture is leading on design and Broadgrove Planning is advising on planning matters.

The Imperial Court scheme is the third development Seth Real Estate has nudged forward in the last year. In 2025, the company unveiled plans for a large co-living development in Pumpfields as well as a 143-bed hotel conversion on Church Street.