Liverpool plans 2020 start on Festival Gardens remediation
Liverpool City Council is planning to submit a planning application this month for the remediation of the 28-acre development zone within Festival Gardens, as part of a timeline which could deliver up to 1,500 homes on the former landfill.
In February, Homes England revealed it would provide a grant of £9.9m to facilitate the development of up to 1,500 homes at Liverpool’s 90-acre Festival Gardens.
The news followed the naming of a joint venture to lead the long-awaited project, with the council announcing it had entered into an exclusivity agreement with Ion and Midia, working with architecture practices BDP and AHR. Remediation was due to begin this spring but is yet to start.
As part of the timeline set out for the cabinet meeting, the council said it would accept the Homes England grant, as well as £150,000 from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority towards pre-remediation, which would see 1,000 cubic meters of material processed, and used to demonstrate Festival Gardens can be used as a pilot project to demonstrate an innovative approach to waste processing and protecting groundwater.
Following the completion of legal agreements with Ion and Midia, a planning application for the homes is due in summer 2020.
The city council said its intention is to facilitate site remediation and ground infrastructure works, and then sell the land for the delivery of the homes.
Pending planning permissions, the first homes could be available by 2022.
The cabinet report is also seeking authority to procure advisors to oversee the remediation strategy, the treatment of the soil and waste, and a contract for the management of the ground gas management system.
Arup has been appointed by Liverpool City Council to produce and submit the remediation planning application.
This is an amazing scheme, exactly what we need here: creating place out of nothing and delivering much-needed homes. I’m all for it.
LL
By Liver lad
The first phase to open up this south Liverpool waterfront and what I call the Mersey Lake. This will have a huge impact on the city, economic, social and environmental and create a very exciting area well beyond this site.
By Liverpolitan
More fantastic news
By Joe
After 34 years countless proposals,developers, studies, strategies and public funding is this the panacea ? I hope so although cant help feeling that the Garden Festival saga will continue to run.Good luck and fingers crossed as it looks a great scheme.
By Taxed
Whatever they have really predetermined to do with this land, it obviously requires coach parking.p
The people of the city the last to know, let alone to be asked.
By Mike
How will these plans fit in with the proposed Mersey Barrage? Massive opportunity on both schemes combining
By Forward Thinker
Not sure the existing road structure can take this increase in potential car use along riverside drive. Let’s hope the proposed nightmare plans for a dual carriage way along here doesn’t take place. Can we be sure that the housing will be mixed residential and not an other site full of flats and apartments.
By Jacqui Woods
We don’t need a panacea here, @taxed, this is a great site by the river, just happens to have 50 years of rubbish underneath it that has to be cleared. Once that’s done it will fly! Many people don’t realise that half of the garden festival site was developed within the first few years of the festival, a portion remains as gardens and this bit has to be cleared of the tipped material. The whole Otterspool area presents massive opportunities and I believe this will prove to be just the first stage. Anyone who uses this area for leisure knows how beautiful it is down there by the river.
By Roscoe
Worked on this when it was restructed for the festival site it was an open tip before it was landscaped over hence the pipes to let the gas out there is no sand or bedrock six foot down just tons of shite that’s got to be removed
By Paul
@ForwardThinker: The engineering and logistical challenges of a Mersey barrage are dwarfed by the attendant funding issues. The cost will be so astronomical that it will require financers to accept a hundred year pay-back period and a huge syndicate of investment funds willing to commit several billion pounds each for a long-term return.
The prospect of cost over-runs during construction and the unknowns with regards to long-term maintenance make this extremely risky for funders. The fact that it is being promoted without an acknowledgement of such suggests this should be filed under ‘political fantasy’, sadly.
Not saying it wouldn’t be a great thing, but has anyone thought to ask why it’s never got off the ground?
By Sceptical
A Mersey barage will become feasible closer to the mouth of the river and certainly this century. They will have to control the tides more anyway as sea levels gradually rise.
By Liverpolitan