Rotheram: Liverpool will be UK’s fastest-growing city region in five years
Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram was bullish about the prospects of his patch, saying “this is our time” but is undecided on whether or not he would stand for a fourth term in 2028 when speaking at Place North West’s Liverpool City Region Development Update yesterday.
The need for speed
Rotheram said major schemes in the pipeline in Liverpool city centre are gathering pace, improving market sentiment and creating a perception that Liverpool is a city that is about delivery, rather than just grand plans.
These projects include the refurbishment of Martins Bank into Grade A workspace with the help of a £22m combined authority grant, the long-awaited Pall Mall office development, which is nearing a start on site, and the North Docks Mayoral Development Zone – 430 acres of brownfield stretching from the city centre’s waterfront to Everton FC’s Hill Dickinson Stadium that could deliver 17,000 homes and 5m sq ft of commercial and employment space.
However, sluggish delivery of major schemes over recent decades – Festival Gardens is moving along now but has been in the pipeline for 40 years – mean that some in the market are circumspect about whether or not, as Rotheram put it, Liverpool really is on the “cusp” of a new era.
“It’s all going in the right direction,” he said. “I’m really fearful of saying that, especially to large audiences, because things can change very, very quickly.”
Rotheram acknowledged the markets concerns about the speed of delivery. Credit: PNW
A step change
Rotheram acknowledged concerns among the development sector about the pace of change – “If I see one more press release that says that Littlewoods is going to be the Hollywood in the North, I think I’ll throw myself off it” – but said that Andy Burnham’s arrival as Prime Minister had brought about a step change in the speed of decision-making at a national level, which is translating locally.
“It is like the Wizard of Oz when it’s all black and white at the beginning of it, and then it turns to the technicolour,” he said, referencing the change in approach between the Starmer and Burnham administrations.
“We’re in the technicolour phase at the moment. The money that we’re winning from national government…we’ve never won a quantum of funding like that ever in our history.”
Rotheram’s positivity is not all about cash. He said the working relationship between local and national government is allowing him to “microwave” processes that might have previously been tied up in bureaucracy.
To demonstrate this, the mayor referenced the North Docks MDC, which was approved in less than a year and should give confidence to developers seeking to press ahead with projects in that area.
“Everybody here will know construction inflation is running far, far in excess of general inflation,” he said. “So we want things to be happening more quickly, and we want to be signing those contracts.”
Failure to do so will have significant consequences, as demonstrated by the recent announcement that the cost of building a train station in Baltic Triangle had increased by £64m, more than the £96.4m approved for the project in 2024.
To demonstrate his confidence that there will be significant movement on major projects including the station, Martins Bank, and Pall Mall over the next 12 months, Rotheram committed to attending Place North West’s Liverpool Development Update in 2027 to be judged on their progress.
Rotheram promised to attend Place’s 2027 edition of the Liverpool City Region Development Update to be judged on the progress of major projects. Credit: PNW
Four more years?
Rotheram has previously said the next mayoral term, beginning in 2028, would be the most exciting for a Liverpool City Region mayor, although how exciting is likely to depend on whether devolution champion Burnham is reelected at the next general election.
However, Rotheram, who turned 65 on Wednesday and became a grandfather in the summer, refused to confirm if he would run for a fourth term.
He said becoming a grandparent had been “life-changing” and had forced him to take stock of his future.
If a decision was required on his future today, Rotheram said he would stand, but that could be subject to change.
“If you had asked me 18 months ago, would I have wanted to have been the metro mayor going forward, I would have said 100%. But Harley comes along, and it’s just the best thing that’s ever happened.
“I’m leaving wiggle room because I don’t know what life’s going to bring.”
Liverpool’s time?
A poll conducted during the conference asked how optimistic or otherwise the 300 attendees were about the future of Liverpool City Region with regards to its ability to deliver large projects like the £1.2bn Kings skyscraper cluster and the regeneration of the former Littlewoods building into a film and TV campus.
The results showed a majority were confident about the future but that a minority remained pessimistic, either due to local shortcomings or national or global economic constraints.
Rotheram said those who were pessimistic had forgotten Liverpool’s history and were unaware of economic data, which he said shows the city region to be outpacing many others in the country.
“That’s the 80s and 90s when you were pessimistic, when there was nothing happening. You must be able to see that things are happening now. There’s no reason for anybody to feel pessimistic.
“This is our time. I think in five years’ time, Liverpool will be the fastest-growing city region in the country.”
