Liverpool FC presses on with fresh Melwood proposals

Just months after buying back the historic training ground, the club is progressing its plans to turn the West Derby site into a base for its women’s team.

Liverpool FC has submitted fresh design proposals for Melwood after plans for more than 160 homes there were scrapped earlier this year, allowing the women’s team to start using the facility in September.

The football club wants to combine the training facility with the existing Robbie Fowler Academy on site in order to provide an elite training ground for its women’s team and a centre of excellence to develop the Pro-Girls Academy.

Having acquired the 12-acre grounds in the 1950s, the club sold Melwood to housing association Torus in 2019 ahead of the first team’s move to the AXA Training Centre in Kirkby in 2020.

Last year, Torus was granted planning permission from Liverpool City Council to build 162 homes on the West Derby site. Despite this, the £48m residential scheme was scrapped when the club reacquired the training ground this June.

A sports academy run by ex-Liverpool players Jamie Carragher and Robbie Fowler currently occupies part of the grounds and had formed part of the Torus application. This academy will remain part of the club’s plans going forward, with the LFC Foundation planning work alongside The Fowler Academy to provide community outreach programmes at Melwood.

Floodlights that had been removed in order to prepare the grounds as a housing estate would be reinstalled under the new proposals, along with fresh signs to mark the club’s return.

A welfare portacabin and separate entrance would also be created for the use of the academy.

Plans come at the same time as Liverpool FC has announced that the upper-tier seats at its stadium’s Anfield Road Stand have been fully installed and the project is on track for an early 2024 completion. The stand will eventually bring an additional 7,000 seats to the stadium, bringing its capacity to 61,000.

Buckingham Group had been the main contractor for the Anfield scheme, before falling into administration earlier this year and pausing development. Within days, Preston-based Rayner Rowen took over the job.

Meanwhile, Brock Carmichael is drawing up the plans for Melwood’s future. The project team also includes Prime Transport, Turley, and Neil Johnson Sports Lighting.

To learn more about the West Derby project, search for application number 23F/2633 on Liverpool City Council’s planning portal.