Welsh Streets masterplan due for green light
Liverpool City Council’s cabinet is set to approve a masterplan for close to 300 homes in the Welsh Streets, Dingle.
The project has been advanced in partnership with build-to-rent developer Placefirst, which is nearing completion on a pilot scheme to bring some of the terraced properties on High Park Street and Voelas Street in Princes Park back into use.
The masterplan envisages 294 new homes in total, including both refurbished houses and new build. There will also be improvements to the streets, drainage and the creation of communal gardens to the rear.
To address a shortage of larger homes in the area, 124 of the houses will have four bedrooms, while 109 will have three. The remaining 61 will be two-bedroom.
The plan is for 30 of the houses to be affordable rent, 35 will be shared ownership/rent to buy, 194 will be let at market rent and 35 will be available to buy.
Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson said: “Placefirst have done an excellent job bringing some of the homes back into use as part of their pilot project, and together with the local community we have now drawn up some really exciting plans to breathe new life into the area and give it a long term, sustainable future.
“This is about providing certainty for the local community following years of frustration in which their wishes were thwarted by central government’s interference in the local planning process.
“We’ve already demonstrated with the regeneration of Anfield and our Homes for a Pound scheme that we are leading the way in finding imaginative ways of retaining properties where it is viable to do so, and this project reflects our approach.”
The council is also working with local social landlord Plus Dane with a view to developing a further phase of improvements to their properties in the area. A seven-home pilot refurbishment will start later this year.
If the masterplan is approved at cabinet on 23 June, a planning application will be submitted with more detailed proposals and designs.
What a depressing project, like a Victorian slum, can’t we move on?
By NY
People want to live in houses with a sense of community around them, whats’s the problem, once renovated these will be fine homes to live in.
By causal observer
NY, you’re an idiot! Victorian slum? Ridiculous comment. Bringing the old terraced houses back in to use is a great idea and preserving part of the cities history
By David
@NY it’s not Salford
By Ronnie
They look nice with the back gardens, but if we are going to start a terraced house revival, we need to avoid creating the slums of the future. NY has a point. Liverpool has many beautiful Georgian houses. Those are the houses we should be replicating.
By Elephant
SAVE and their ilk will no doubt be crowing about the result and they do look very promising, much like a similar scheme in Moss Side. But none of this would be possible without the public money to buy them up, move people out and reconfigure and rebuild them from scratch behind the original facade.
This is a new-build scheme in all but name. For all the opprobrium heaped upon Pathfinder and Housing Market Renewal none of this would’ve been possible without that policy and associated funding.
By Anon
These are refurbished properties, with only the rear extensions removed, all of the main house has been retained and reconfigured internally – they are not from scratch. The Victorian frontages have been restored to their old grandeur and the rears modernized, getting rid of the existing dingy back alleys for large communal gardens. These hundreds of houses have been empty for years, it’s great to see regeneration in our area.
By AnonResponse
Sorry to be pedantic but it’s in Toxteth not Dingle.
By Indian Nights
There’s no doubt it’s a great scheme but stretching credulity to call it a refurbishment when you’re creating three and four bedroom units out of 2 bed terraces and so much of the fabric and services have been replaced.
None of this would’ve been possible without wholesale acquisition, relocation and redevelopment with substantial public sector subsidy. It’s a new build scheme in all but name.
By Anon