Liverpool floats plan for small, stalled, and vacant ‘blights’
Liverpool City Council’s cabinet is expected to approve an outline strategy, the Housing and Sites Delivery Programme, which targets the building of more than 11,000 homes, as well as bringing more than 10,000 vacant properties back into use.
In the plan, the city council acknowledges its ability to “use its significant levers to influence, enable, increase, and accelerate the delivery of housing”.
To do this, the authority will leverage its influence over larger schemes, strengthen partnerships with other organisations, and engage in the “targeted release and development of its vacant and under-used council land”, according to a cabinet report.
LCC has highlighted four key strategies to assist its goal of delivering more than 11,000 homes in its strategy.
Small sites
This plan sets out Liverpool’s strategy to utilise vacant, under-used, and derelict parcels of council-owned land. More than 40 potential sites, with the capacity for more than 1,000 homes have been identified by LCC.
Land that on its own that would not be developable or viable will be considered in a wider place-based approach, to unlock the land’s potential for “relatively significant housing numbers in a relatively short time frame”, according to the strategy.
Plans suggest standalone sites will not be viable, but with a wider approach and the opportunity to include similar-sized sites in private ownership, LCC will be able to create sites of sufficient critical mass to enable construction.
To identify potential sites, Liverpool will undertake a strategic housing land availability assessment to create a database of sites with the physical potential for housebuilding, which is crucial to demonstrate to the central government that the city has a five-year plan for housing, allowing for greater funding allocations.
The strategy would initiate a ‘call for sites’, offering landowners, site promoters, developers, and the local community a chance to make the city council aware of sites they believe could be developed to suit local needs.
Sites put forward would then be assessed by the city council’s planning team and ranked by their suitability, achievability, and availability.
The delivery options under consideration are:
- Disposal on the open market, with a minimum condition for 20% affordable housing, and where there is need and demand, a higher percentage
- Ringfenced disposals to registered providers through a competitive bidding process, strategic partnerships, a disposal framework, or a consortium-based approach
- Joint ventures and public-private partnerships
- Community-led housing
The strategy states that the small number of sites in the city that have been a source of ongoing complaints are being prioritised for delivery.
Technical due diligence is being accelerated through Homes England funding to enable these sites to be brought forward for disposal at pace.
Stalled sites
The strategy notes stalled sites as “a source of local blight”, a “drain on council resources”, and a “potential barrier to inward investment into the city”.
Liverpool will redefine stalled sites to include vacant or derelict property in private ownership, as well as create a specialised team focussed on unlocking such sites.
City-wide surveys will allow the council to prioritise and efficiently allocate resources, with a database established by Q1 2025.
Supplementary planning documents are in the process of being brought forward for areas such as Pumpfields, West Everton, North Everton, St George’s Gateway, and the Knowledge Quarter.
These SPDs will provide “positive and proactive” frameworks for the earmarked areas and are planned to be completed between 2025-26, according to the council.
Q1 2025 is the target date for surveys to round off before the programme of allocating resources commences in Q2 2025.
Empty homes
LCC has identified more than 10,000 empty properties across the city, with approximately 3,000 of them having been vacant for three years or more.
To bring these properties back into use, the Neighbourhoods and Housing Directorate under the Private Sector Housing Service will use its powers to tackle empty homes and vacant land.
Void houses in Anfield, Edge Hill, and Princes Park wards have been recommended for sale with the council leasing back some of the properties for use as move on accommodation. These houses are expected to be marketed within Q1 2025, with sales and refurbishment completed by Q4 2025.
Larger scale redevelopment
In tandem with tackling smaller, underused sites, the strategy notes three larger sites which have stalled.
- Festival Gardens – procurement is in progress to secure a development partner by Q3 2025, with housing delivery expected to begin in 2027
- Kings Dock – development options for the 7.6-acre site are expected to be lodged with LCC’s cabinet by Q2 2025
- Great George Street – recently acquired by the council, presenting a large-scale regeneration opportunity in Chinatown
The Festival Gardens site has been the subject of redevelopment proposals for years. Credit: via Liverpool City Council
The Housing and Sites Delivery Programme has been recommended for approval and will be put to LCC’s cabinet on 10 December.
This is good news and hopefully will make widescale positive changes in may parts of the city. LCC needs to ensure its transparent with its disposals and makes them available to the market and not one or two individuals, whilst ensuring the tax payer receives market value for these sites. The 20% should be reconsidered as it may become a barrier for the less attractive and smaller sites to developers. Wonder why this hasn’t been done years ago.
By GetItBuilt!
Good. Now let’s get them to put the same shift-on with regards to all the sites that the private sector is trying to bring forward, but which seem inexplicably stuck in the planning system.
By More Anonymous than the others
The trouble with this and all similar sized masterplans is there is (and never will be) any provisions for essential infrastructure. You can take Manchester, which has gone from having say 500,000 increase in population region-wide in the last 20 years and nothing but a few tram lines and a rail bridge in the city centre (along with narrowing the roads). People cannot move around from A to B now ,let alone with all these continued long term strategies of adding tens of thousands of new homes, thousands of new jobs in central areas. Few other developed countries stifle their regions quite like the British.
By Anonymous
@Anonymous at 12:29pm – Liverpool’s population has decreased massively post-industrialisation. The city is hugely underoccupied and has plenty of essential infrastructure capacity. Infrastructure certainly needs to be upgraded and maintained in places, but lets not pretend that the city doesn’t have capacity for 11,000 desperately needed new homes.
By Anonymous
More dream-on nonsense and fairy tale thinking and action from the deluded LCC . A minimum of 20% ” social housing ” provision on small sites ? They really are living in dreamland . They never learn.
By Anonymous
Great intentions, but the 20% affordable along with the laborious and expensive planning process (has got worse) result in most sites not being deliverable… Get the planners in to the office, rather than WFH and reduce red tape… only then will they achieve the desired numbers
By James O'Brien
So Festival Gardens no start for at least 2 years, Kings Dock options to considered by Summer 2025 and then a start date, who knows?
Plenty of dereliction on Scotland Rd, Ten Streets, Granby, etc.
Meanwhile buildings decaying like the beautiful Everton Library need a strategy so how about trying to turn it into a heath centre/community hub and engage with a builder to build well designed 3 storey townhouses in a similar red brick on the vacant land next to the library, as we can`t afford to lose this historic building.
By Anonymous
I think the city does have capacity for these extra homes as recent figures have said population rising – suppose it depends which figures we are all looking at. However LCC is just not joined up. Strategy for Lime St, Strategy for London Road, and then pat themselves on back – join it all up for goodness sake. Sort one area – have an identity, sort your gateways to the city. Not bits and pieces all the time paying Mouchel or whoever to do studies when they don’t seem to have engaged all the stakeholders.
By Bob Dawson
The Council selling them on with a Covenant requiring 20% affordable housing sounds like wishful thinking.
By Watcherzero
Re: The three larger sites that have stalled, I think that there must have been a typo error when the date of 2027 was posted for the delivery of housing on the festival gardens site and it should realistically be reading 2037 instead to allow for yet more consultations by LCC about the type of housing and infrastructure on the site. With regards to Kings Dock, I have so many fanciful plans for it over many, many years and none have come to fruition! The only beneficiaries have been the consultants who come with the ideas and the printers who have printed the many hundreds of fancy brochures. As for Great George Street, nothing will happen there either apart from it being a great nursery for weeds! I have zero faith in our council getting anything done for the betterment of the fine city that I call home!
By Brendan R
They need to get the infinity site sorted, such a waste.
By Anonymous
Car parks and campsites lol
By Anonymous
It is so obvious now that items on PNW regarding Liverpool development are getting less and less, so much so that even the Liverpool Echo is running an article about the lack of noteworthy planning applications coming through, and the recent planning committee meeting discussed items about demolishing 2 bungalows. The article here about chasing stalled, unstarted, or vacant sites is interesting but no way makes up for the way Liverpool is being ignored by developers, and the councillors can talk all they like about new 10 and 15 year plans but we already have plans of that length in place and nothing has come of them. Someone on the council, maybe it`s CEO, might agree to a chat with PNW and give us a few truths.
By Anonymous