Liverpool to adopt 30-year regen vision for riverside

Here we go again another 30 year masterplan. The reality is since 2008 capital of culture the city has stagnated. Over a decade has been wasted thanks to no vision or ambition. Driving into Manchester this morning the ambition is on another level. We now have a Labour Government so the usual excuses won’t work anymore.

Anything over 5 to 10 years is a completely meaningless timescale.

When you can’t attract business and investment let’s think of some activity to pass our time. Do these clowns think this idea will solve Liverpool’s problems, I can bet one of the people behind this is our cycling and active travel guru, yes the one behind closing the Strand to cars a couple of years ago which caused chaos throughout the city for the whole day.
The reality is people have cars and cars use roads, the Strand is a major travel route but if people want to cross it to get to the Pierhead just use the crossing points like anyone normal. Liverpool’s road planners have already messed up the city, and the late night parking restrictions are negatively affecting the city’s theatres and nightlife industry.
Someone needs to get a grip of themselves.

Liverpool won’t progress until the awful councillors and planning department are gone. Nick Small in charge of economic growth is beyond a joke. Small spent years opposing Pall Mall and anything that would grow the economy. Labour has done more damage to the city than Tories.

The problem with consultations is you ask people who dont have a clue how big cities work. Some people want the waterfront to be full of bungalows and a bit of green. Liverpool is decades behind Manchester economically because of this small time attitude.

We all be dead and buried before this takes shape

Didn’t they have one 20 years ago same content?

Yet they make it so difficult for companies to invest

Should cut & cover the road from Leeds St to Baltic Pub

Liverpool’s a fantastic city and i personally really like the direction of these plans. I just wish there was more momentum and drive to get them delivered quickly. Can’t help thinking Manchester would have completed the whole thing inside a decade at the rate they’re moving. Maybe that’s a bit unfair – i’m sure they’re trying – but these timescales all feel a bit…decadent given how competitive the landscape is.

Thought this was great work by West8, and good to see ambition for active travel, and placemaking. It’s not particularly pleasant having a 4 to, at some points, 8 lane dual carriageway straight through the most iconic part of the city. This at least cuts it to 4, but with the new rapid bus route, it could be more ambitious and be 2 lanes for buses and 2 lanes for traffic. That would reduce the amount of pollution and noise, and allow pedestrians to cross more safely. The rapid bus route should take drivers off the roads.
And great to see the ambition for the path from Aigburth up to the new Central Park – there is so much potential for that path, and needs the investment.

We had it drummed down our throats that only electing Labour would take Liverpool to the next level. 2025 was another year nothing happened no doubt 26 will be similar.

Long-term plans are all well and good provided people are allowed to get on with things, take risks and get stuff done. The problem with many planning methodology tools is that they have built in risk aversion and stifle creativity and innovation in the worst case they can act as a crutch for people who are afraid to take risks. A 30 year plan needs 5 year milestones which project managers should be striving to out performe, without milestones it’s easy to kick problems and obstacles into the long grass and nothing gets done.

Some of the contributors on here who think a few rapid transit bendy buses will take people out of their cars must be in dreamland. Meanwhile all this talk of trees, parks, walking, and cycling how will that boost the city’s economy. And then a path from Aigburth to the park at the Central Docks , big deal, you can already walk from Otterspool to just beyond the IOM ferry terminal.
These placemakers and environment zealots continue to plug their agenda, while the realists want to see jobs in this city and investment in infrastructure including construction cranes on the skyline. There are busy roads in waterfront cities in Europe eg Barcelona, Marseille, Genoa, and so on, and Liverpool needs stop looking to turn everything into a car free zone.

Oh god no

Here comes LCC. No ideas just a wrecking ball.

Fine. And worthy , but actually deliver cheap,and simple task of opening the riverside walkway to the new Everton ground . This would actually show some progress . The walkway would help reduce significant congestion and allow crowds safer access and egress to and from the new ground . So Liverpool Council actually deliver a simple cheap but useful project as well as 30 year visions

Is it April the 1st already? I think the consultants who are providing the ‘vision’ for our beloved waterfront have got their geography wrong! Liverpool is on the Mersey and the Irish Sea and not on the warm and sunny Italian Riviera or the Adriatic or the Aegean. Tree lined boulevards and Baltic beaches would be fine in those places but not here with our harsh and biting winds and at times wild river. When those of us who spend most of our time on the waterfront talk of somewhere feeling ‘baltic’ we mean it is very cold and not somewhere you can spend catching the sun rays! The plans and visions have very clearly not been thought through and show a complete lack of insight and understanding of our beloved waterfront and should be filed away and never be seen again. As @ terry 8.39 says ‘here we go another 30 year masterplan’. I have seen so many ‘masterplans?’ and none of them ever happen and hopefully this will be just the same because it shows that its authors show they just don’t understand the waterfront and its environment. Oh and don’t forget Mayor Rotheram’s tidal barrage could undermine the whole idea too. I wonder where that will be sited? Will it be to the north or to the south of the Pier Head? Another thing of pure fantasy!

To be fair long term plans are needed. Manchester has its 25 year plans for the Strangeways /Cheetham hill area too. It’s the shorter term plans we all want to see actioned …while some of us are still topside.

Thirty years! Whoa, slow down what’s the big rush!

A vision or a mirage? A vision is a realistic plan or strategy, while a mirage is an illusion brought on by a state of confusion.

More mid rise and family housing with nice views. Homes to grow old in. None of those yuppie towers thanks

The reality is that Liverpool doesn’t have a Mediterranean climate. If we want tourists to wander around the Pier Head, the the priority is to improve bus connectivity to/from other parts of the city. There needs to be something like a 10 minute frequency to the Mersey ferry terminal, passing the hotels and some of the other places people want to visit (e.g. the Cathedrals).

If nothing else it will provoke debate!

@ Listen to me 4.59pm, no yuppie towers, yuppie? Homes to grow old in! Kind of sums up what Liverpool has to deal with, people still using terms like yuppie, and wanting Liverpool to be a retirement village.
The future of Liverpool depends on creating work and opportunities for young people, and if they can’t find what they want here they move away to become yuppies somewhere else more lively and economically buoyant.

8:14 am
By Anonymous – Absolutely spot on – I regularly cringe at some of the comments on here. Why are they stuck in 1980 its us against the world. We are falling so far behind to other business friendly forward looking UK cities . We need to embrace quality projects and try to retain our young professional’s etc. not loose them to Manchester and London . Quality apartments should applauded.

Best get your planning applications submitted now if you want them determined within the period of this regen vision.

If you’re coming into Manchester from the west it all looks fantastic.. come at it from the east.. it’s a cess pit.. and the plans are to make what’s good an urban sprawl.. Manchester is not to be completely copied.. if they thought right Liverpool could more than compete to become a bright business city.. a creative one.. Manchester is eating itself.. but it will pull in Liverpool suburbs and consume much of it if Liverpool doesn’t think faster than 30 years

What load of codswallop. Usual hairy fairy out of town consultants talking absolute Pony. The city can’t event maintain the Garden Festival it is done by volunteers.
When the sun is out the youngsters are jumping in the docks from all angles the Baltic Beach idea is a joke.
Queens Dock is already an active recreational space with a watersports centre offering all kinds of activities and training. There is rowing and dragonboat club. Did any visionaries speak to any of these people? No is the answer probably.
In the words of Jim Royle……’ My axxe’

Need to devote the money to this and deliver pronto. Golden plans that will set the city up for 100 years if and only if they are funded.

November 11, 2025 at 10:25 am By TC
..and when they proposed and built that monstrosity of a road the people didn’t want it.. but money for the officials and the developers pushed it through.. and that is what Liverpool is afraid of.. Liverpool had a public transport system with potential that was thrown away.. resurrect what’s still there and useful before building over the remains.. that should be it’s first priority. Screw affordable homes for people that aren’t then able to get anywhere!

What’s wrong with wide boulevards or avenues, I like the Strand as it is but it could be lined with more trees from the Hilton to Parliament St.
You don’t hear the Parisians wanting to bury the Champs Elysee in a tunnel or make it narrower, we have plenty more of the city centre that could with better landscaping such as Williamson Square, or we can create pocket parks in the Baltic Triangle, Moorfields, and around Duke Street.