Liverpool announces draft local plan sites
The city council has published a list of 280 sites which could be used for housing and employment developments over the next 15 years.
The draft list follows a consultation aimed at identifying areas that could provide space for housing, business, industrial units, open space and infrastructure.
The final list of sites will become part of Liverpool's local plan. The plan will set out how housing and employment demand, estimated at more than 40,000 new homes and 750 acres of land for industrial and commercial use, can be delivered by 2028.
The council received around 330 representations covering 280 sites with a combined area of 2,500 acres. A total of 60 of the representations were about protecting existing sites from development or change.
Local plans are required to objectively assess need for key land uses and then find the sites and means of delivering on those requirements.
The city council will now review and consider all the responses to the consultation before publishing its draft local plan in summer 2015 which will show the sites to be taken forward.
The draft local plan will then be subject to a planning inquiry by an independent inspector in 2016/17.
Cllr Malcolm Kennedy, cabinet member for regeneration, said: "We are a growing city with huge ambitions and the local plan will be instrumental in how our city looks, grows and develops in the future.
"It is important to stress that this is a rigorous and fully transparent process that will take a number of years to complete, and is one that the Government places a duty on us to go through.
"The local plan is essential for attracting investment for the right uses in the right places. If developers, investors and businesses don't understand our aspirations they will go elsewhere, so this is about making sure we are in the best position to help the city prosper."
The draft list of sites will be discussed at a special meeting of the city council's regeneration, housing and sustainability select committee on Tuesday 23 September.
View the full report here and the sites on the draft list here
