More time needed for Festival Gardens to grow
Construction on the long-awaited Liverpool housing development is likely to be delayed by three years until at least March 2027 – the original start date was 1 July 2024.
As a result, the expected completion date on the Liverpool City Council project has also been pushed back from 31 August 2031 to 31 March 2033.
Festival Gardens is a 28-acre brownfield site located to the south of Liverpool’s city centre that has long been earmarked for development into hundreds of homes.
The proposed revised timescales were published in a committee report for Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s cabinet meeting on Friday. The combined authority is providing funding for the delivery of Festival Gardens, alongside the city council and Homes England.
LCC has said that the timeline changes reflect the ongoing appointment process for a development partner. The local authority is on track to appoint a partner after the bidding process was launched in October 2024.
The city council has indicated that it has received several expressions of interest already.
Amendments to funding to allow LCC to receive a proportion in advance of the appointment of a developer, in recognition of recent consequential changes, have also been recommended for approval at the combined authority’s meeting.
The update on Festival Gardens also includes a promise to “use all reasonable endeavours” to reach a delivery rate of 14 residential units per month over the revised development period.
The project itself should showcase “exemplar design quality and place-making” that would be a “flagship sustainable project”, according to the combined authority. A commitment to supply 20% of the Festival Gardens units as affordable housing has remained.
Both recommendations for Friday’s meeting aim to support the completion of the project and ensure investment of public funding is protected.
Festival Gardens has been in the works for a while, with contractor Vinci completing land remediation and infrastructure installation in January.
Pathetic , who are these people giving themselves another 3 years ? This is a significant and prestigious location on the banks of the Mersey. Its a criminal waste of time to lose another 3 years. LCC should not be anywhere near this .
By Paul M - Woolton
Send in Angela Rayner
By Anonymous
What a load of nonsense again from LCC, can they get any more amateurish and incompetent?
They go on about sites being a blight on our city and this has lay vacant for 20 plus years.
They have got rid of two construction partners already and they are now delaying by a minimum of another 27 months from here (33 months past the original date)!
How much has been spent on this site to date? What are the current holding costs? what are the estimated future costs to get us to get to to March ’27? Is there a chance it will be delayed further?
They need to get their act together and maybe start to engage with local developers, rather than be snobbish and look down their noses at local’s who ultimately pay their wages and into their substantial pension pots!
Starmer, Rayner and their cohorts should also be asking big questions here as their unrealistic target is slipping further away.
By TaxPayer
That’s shocking considering its not a massive site, there just seems to be very little urgency in getting any of these sites developed
By GetItBuilt!
The timescales for this development are shocking, yes we need proper plans but the pace is torturous. When the site eventually! Happens let’s hope they ae high end homes that will both make a contribution to council tax and keeping high earner in the city to support the economy. Liverpool has plenty of sites bit quality homes
By George
A long running farce worthy of the Whitehall Theatre, this is supposedly one of the Council’s flagship projects but it is scheduled to complete in 2033, what to build housing!, just incredible. Look at some of the other so called high-profile projects in Liverpool: Kings Dock nothing happening, Littlewoods Film Studio no workers on site, Pall Mall offices just empty updates,Ten Streets just chaos and confusion, Chinatown, well at least there’s some hope as the Council now own the site but need a developer.
So frustrating.
By Anonymous
Nothing surprises me anymore regarding the absolute utter incompetence of Liverpool City Council.
They cant get the simple things right, so how we would expect them to get this right is beyond me….
By Liverpool Tax Payer
LCC going nowhere fast as usual, it’s ok because we are going to “sink the strand” some time in the next 30 years
By Anonymous
I don’t understand why this site is so difficult to develop. Admittedly, it’s in a good location overlooking the river, but at the end of the day, it’s just a small housing development it shouldn’t be that challenging.
By Anonymous
Once again LCC are slow .Manchester leave us behind .The site is overgrown again, after spending all that money on it.Whats it going to look like in another 3 years time.
Are they paying for security?Its an eye sore
By tax payer
Yet the new Everton Stadium were able to grow their grass fast with machines. I smell lies 🤥
By Anonymous
Yes Anon 7.24pm, Everton have built an £800m stadium in 3 years, and that included draining a dock and filling it with sand, something is very wrong at Festival Gardens and the UK government has poured tens of millions into this scheme.
By Anonymous
The Garden Festival closed in 1984. Forty plus years later the saga of redevelopment continues on and on and on. Its a housing site on an old tip with a bit of water frontage. The aspirations are great bit so far it all been aspirations, with nothing to show for it !
By Otto Spool
Forget the hype around exemplar schemes and just get something built on a prime site! LCC and their friends at the Combined Authority equally to blame for years of drift on the project.
By Anonymous
Combined Authority has merely agreed to part fund this – delivery is entirely within the remit of the incompetents at Liverpool City Council.
By Roles and ResponsibilieZ
So construction may start in March 2027 or it may not, and even if it does how many homes will be completed by summer 2029 when the next election is due. I doubt therefore if Angela Rayner or Rachel Reeves will be giving anymore backing to this project.
By Anonymous
Trying to delay the inevitable realisation that LCC will not get any return on investment for the remediation costs
By Brrrr