Demolition refusal puts Ten Streets hotel in doubt

World Heritage Status around the historic docks led Liverpool City Council to turn down an application for demolition of a set of warehouses off Waterloo Road to make way for a £10m hotel.

Local developer Fast Growth Homes, advised by land agent David Copestake, had been preparing to begin demolition in January, following a demolition application made at the start of December.

This week the council refused the application. The refusal notice stated: “The application buildings are within the buffer zone of the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City World Heritage Site and comprise an important non-designated heritage asset which is identified within The Ten Streets SRF as a building to retain.”

The council continued: “In the absence of detailed proposals for the support and retention of the link bridge (which is attached to both the application site and the adjacent warehouse located at rear of 24 Vulcan Street and 13 Porter Street and identified on the submitted plan); and for the restoration and after-treatment of the cleared land; and given no permission has been granted to redevelop the site, the local planning authority considers the loss of the buildings and link bridge together with the resulting area of undeveloped and vacant land would detract significantly from the visual amenity of the surrounding area and would have a negative impact on the buffer zone, identified to protect the visual setting of the World Heritage Site.”

IBS Warehouses Liverpool 3

The council earlier stated it would be minded to refuse the planning application for the hotel-led mixed-use project at the site.

The Ten Streets area is attracting investors and developers as an emerging arts and creative industries district, neighbouring Peel’s extensive Liverpool Waters development zone.

Fast Growth Homes is advised by The Planning Studio and NS Architects.

Ten Streets Hotel Fast Growth Homes

Design for the proposed hotel

Your Comments

Read our comments policy

Liverpool has got lots of hotels. It is a fair decision.

By Bixteth Boy

Phew! This is great news. The warehouses should be brought back into use and not demolished. They are gorgeous buildings. LCC have made the perfect decision turning it down. Well done.

By David

Pity the Council don’t understand that you can’t reject PD rights just because a building lies in a buffer zone of a WHS! – can they point to any part of the GPDO that excludes PD demolition of buildings in the buffer of a WHS? – I think not!!
I would think an appeal on this might be interesting!

By Bemused!

The warehouse linked to this building needs to be retained, but the modern warehouse set for demolition can go!

By Peter Stoba

Mixed feelings on this one, firstly Fast Growth Homes don`t seem to build anything so not confident they intend to even to put spades in the ground.
On the other hand the Ten Streets fundamentalists need to know that they will scare off developers if they keep to their rigid approach of trying save every building and restrict heights.
There will be a big demand for hotels and apartments in this area once the Everton stadium is built , so if you want Ten Streets and the North End to prosper they will need to be flexible.

By Anonymous

Too manyhotels

By PDM

Good. Perhaps the tide is finally turning and Liverpool is taking seriously the city’s heritage assets. Previously under Anderson if something wasn’t listed it was basically a free for all.

By North Shore

@bemused If the buffer has been created to protect visual amenity of a designated heritage asset (which is arguably part of its setting) then the council has a duty to protect that setting. That much is clear in the NPPF

PD be damned.

By Du Be Ous

I wish Manchester Council valued its heritage assets as much as Liverpool’s does. Those warehouses could be a fantastic development with the right vision.

By Jon P

It’s not that there are “too many” hotels. There aren’t too many at all; certainly not when the economy is functioning normally ( non covid times that is). However, this is the right decision. The warehouses need to be incorporated into any scheme that is delivered. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing it well.

By JA

@Du be Ous – sadly you’re in the same misguided position as the Council. It’s totally irrelevant what the NPPF says re protection of heritage assets. The legal point is that the warehouse is neither listed or in a cons area; it’s not got an outline pp to demolish and there’s no exclusion of buildings in a WHS buffer from the PD rights. If the Council were so keen to preserve it they could issue an Article 4 Direction, something they’ll never get past the SOS. The building will eventually fall down in any event, but I very much expect it’ll be granted on appeal to be demolished as it’s definitely PD!

By Bemused

Good news. Get planning and flip it ‘developer’ like so many.

By Mikes mate

Similar buildings in the Baltic are now being saved! … In fact lesser buildings. This area is even more characterful and adjacent to the WHS!

By Liverpolitan

Buildings of any historic interest (which these warehouses are) should be retained – but there is still plenty of scope for imaginative new development, which should be helped by looking after the historic context.

Height restrictions are another matter – if applied across the board, bureaucratically, they are a nonsense. In terms of height, each application should be looked at on its own individual merit, bearing in mind that Liverpool was the home of the European skyscraper, and that the Ten Streets once contained structures much higher than anything in the current ‘Masterplan’.

By Trevor Skempton

Why are so many local people the enemy of Liverpool and hate to see progress? We are a big city with a small dormitory town mentality who readily accepts the status quo.

By Michael McDonut

@Bemused If it’s PD why apply for planning permission at all?

By Du Be Ous

This is all about the proximity to EFC’s proposed new stadium and the greed of the hoteliers hoping to sell overpriced rooms to visiting Football Supporters, before they book in the City Centre

By Dave Murphy

but they have a masterplan to say this is what’s needed???

By Alan

Some of the anti-development comments on here are just silly and provocative ,such as “greedy hoteliers”, “too many hotels”.
What do these people want in the 10 streets? free hotel rooms!
What about greedy shopkeepers, greedy cafe owners, greedy pub landlords, it seems anyone who runs a business is labelled as greedy.
Maybe the “negatives” want some bungalows built, or derelict building left to view as a living museum, or Bixteth inspired wasteland left to flourish to provide a habitat for rats.

By Anonymous

What’s needed here is revolving hotel and restaurant to go with the high velocity rotating theatre proposals. Perhaps the whole district can be put on a spinning disk so as to create its own ‘gravitational pull’. That way people will be pulled towards the Ten Steets area and we won’t need to knock down perfectly good buildings in order to regenerate it. If the council want to encourage growth, simply turn up the power and make it spin faster helping to draw people from all over the world to this globally-significant cultural industrial warehouse district.

By Centrifuge

These are certainly not ‘heritage assets’ but ugly old buildings which Liverpool already has so much of. Liverpool needs to get its act together and attract development not constantly harp back to glory long gone.

By Realist

Liverpool is a World Heritage Site. These buildings and the historic street patterns around parts of the docks are an intrinsic element of that. The Irish migrations of the 1840s passed through this area. This was a globally significant movement as was a lot of what happened in Liverpool. Manchester commentators love to try and belittle us. They don’t have to tell us they chose a different path, that is obvious. We will be stronger in the future for taking care of as much of our heritage as we can. There is plenty of room for high rise too, in the right places, and there are several good projects approved. We are the original home of the skyscraper. The Liver Building, with its revolutionary construction, was the tallest building in Europe for a large part of the early 20th century, and Oriel Chambers influenced the buildings of Chicago.

By Red Squirrel

Indeed there are some lovely buildings in Liverpool , many of them, but these are not they. Developers and investment are desperately needed to attract the jobs , offices and transport infrastructure needed to move us forward particularly in light of everything going on now. Referencing Manchester is irrelevant, different place different requirements. We need our own agenda and a council with the vision to deliver it. Right now I have to say I am not hopeful.

By Aigburther

Related Articles

Sign up to receive the Place Daily Briefing

Join more than 13,000 property professionals and receive your free daily round-up of built environment news direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Join more than 13,000 property professionals and sign up to receive your free daily round-up of built environment news direct to your inbox.

By subscribing, you are agreeing to our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

"*" indicates required fields

Your Job Field*
Other regional Publications - select below