Major projects have been signed off in 2024
15:55, 01 Jan 2025Updated 15:55, 01 Jan 2025
Work is progressing to transform the Littlewoods building(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
Liverpool’s skyline has been one of its defining characteristics for generations. From the two cathedrals to the soon-to-be-renamed Radio City tower, looking up is never a bad idea in this city.
We’re also not short of a fair few historic buildings dotted around the place either. As we begin 2025, it is the start of another 12 months that will change the landscape of the city for generations to come.
In the last year, a series of major developments have been approved in the city centre and beyond that could reshape how we look at Liverpool in the future. This includes the long-awaited upgrade of one of the city’s most famous sites – the Littlewoods building.
Liverpool Council gave the green light at long last to a £70m redevelopment project on Edge Lane that will lead to the creation of a “Hollywood of the North” film and TV studio. It is hoped that the site will continue to attract major productions like The Batman which has famously shot across the city previously.
It may well also one day win the backing of the producers of the James Bond franchise, with developers taking inspiration from the fictional spy’s spiritual home of Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. New wings of the vast building are scheduled for a 2026 open date with the full scheme earmarked for a 2027 completion.
It’s often said we’re a leader in our corner of the globe and that was no less true with the development of the UK’s first floating sauna. The city approved and opened the WYLD Sauna, providing sauna and ice baths on a floating pontoon next to the existing jetty in Princes Dock, late last year.
The development includes a 30-person sauna and plant room alongside a pair of ice baths with floor boxes. Outdoor showers and waterfall-effect pail showers would also be put in place alongside two changing rooms, with floating planting to act as a boundary for people who would like to enter the dock space.
Wyld Sauna on Prince’s Dock in Liverpool(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A new 81-bed hotel in a historic fruit exchange building in the heart of Liverpool city centre is also coming down the tracks. First used as a railway goods depot, the long-vacant grade II listed site on Victoria Street is to be given a new lease of life.
Developer JSM Company Group won the backing of Liverpool Council’s planning committee to bring the “wonderful building” back into use. A previous application was granted in April 2020 but has since lapsed owing to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The works include internal and external alterations, the insertion of a mezzanine level on the top floor of the Mathew Street wing with associated rear extensions and a small extension into a rear lightwell.
This year marks the opening of Everton’s Bramley-Moore Dock stadium with interest in the area only expected to increase. Ahead of the expected boom in visitor numbers, a new five-storey hotel is to be built on land at Regent Road, Blackstone Street and Fulton Street overlooking the new 52,888-stadium. Sat among a mixture of industrial and warehouse buildings, the site contains a grade II listed building in the form of a former mill.
As part of the designs put forward by applicant Fast Growth Homes (FGH), 32 bedrooms will be situated within the conversion of the listed building and 48 bedrooms within the new build element. The warehouse was constructed around 1850.
The regeneration of north Liverpool is a key issue for the city council and the council confirmed as part of this, construction of more than 130 new flats at a controversial site hit by a major blaze at the start of last year will go ahead. One of the long-stalled Fox Street Village blocks was gripped by flames as ashes scattered over neighbouring streets in Everton and further afield.
Some demolition work took place on the site earlier this year (Andrew Teebay)(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
A dozen fire engines attended the scene as a major incident was declared. Liverpool Council’s planning committee gave the sign off to proposals to complete the final stage of the residential scheme which has been likened to a “slum looking estate.”
It was one of a number of controversial plans to get signed off last year, including designs to build dozens of new homes on a former sports centre in the Eldonian Village after an appeal. The future of the former Elaine Norris centre on Vauxhall Road had been the subject of various plans over the last few years.
In August 2023, proposals from Kersh Worral Commercial were put forward to develop a four storey building containing 68 new homes. Despite objections from the community and Liverpool Council’s planning committee, the designs will now go ahead having been approved by the planning inspectorate.
Hugely contested plans to expand a hazardous waste site in Garston will also go ahead much to the anger of campaigners. Proposals by Veolia UK to install two new 30m high towers for the management of hazardous waste at its industrial site on Blackburne Street were approved at the second time of asking by members of Liverpool Council’s planning committee.
The Garston Veolia site
The location has operated as a lower-tier control of major accident hazards (COMAH) plant since 2000 and the two towers will expand their capacity by a further 28,000 tonnes. Concerns are lingering about the future of one development that could be in jeopardy this year.
A major redevelopment of Liverpool’s one-of-a-kind International Slavery Museum has been placed in doubt after key funds could be pulled post-budget. “Exceptional” plans for the creation of a new entrance at a long unused part of the city’s Albert Dock were signed off by the local authority as part of a £58m redevelopment of the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum.
Formerly home to Granada Television, National Museums Liverpool (NML) said the overhaul of the site was needed to become “more sustainable” and meet the needs of the museum’s audiences in documents released by the government after Rachel Reeves delivered the first Labour Budget in 14 years have detailed how £10m allocated under the Conservatives through the Levelling Up fund for the scheme is now under review and could be cut altogether. The site has closed for refurbishment work with no update issued by the government on its long-term future.