Peel L&P secures planning consent for 4.7-acre ‘Central Park’ in Liverpool Waters. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool planners have approved Peel L&P’s project to create a 4.7-acre ‘Central Park in Liverpool’.
Located within Central Docks, just south of Collingwood Dock close to the Tobacco Warehouse, Central Park will become a large green on Liverpool Waterfront. Hundreds of trees will also be planted across the Central Docks neighbourhood.
This latest planning approval also gives Peel L&P the go-ahead to create essential infrastructure to enable the delivery of around 2,350 new homes over the next 10 years.
Liverpool Waters was first unveiled more than a decade ago. It was put forward as a 30-year scheme. However, Peel has come in for criticism from those who believe the reality so far has not matched the original vision.
Most of the development so far has been residential. Two for-rent high-rise schemes have recently been completed at Princes Dock. In February LBN revealed X1 Developments is to pick up a twice-stalled £50m residential tower, also in Princes Dock.
Romal Capital has already delivered two schemes in Central Docks and started work building 330 apartments, despite local opposition.
Work is also well advanced on two major commercial projects at Liverpool Waters. They are the £500m Everton FC stadium and the £70m Isle of Man ferry terminal, funded by the Manx government.
Peel L&P’s latest plans also include the creation of a network of public spaces in the Central Docks neighbourhood, with green streets and rain gardens. There will be a variety of street types to support vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists.
Coastal and woodland planting, wetland planting, and community gardens will all be features of Central Park, celebrating the site’s post-industrial heritage and its coastal locality. It will also offer shelters and canopies, areas for sport, recreation and fitness, and spaces designed to support local wildlife.
Connectivity for pedestrians and cyclists between the city centre, Princes Dock, Everton’s new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock, and the city’s northern docks will also be significantly improved as part of this development.
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Chris Capes, Peel L&P’s development director for Liverpool Waters, said: “The council’s approval of our plans for Central Park, and its surrounding infrastructure and public realm, paves the way for 10 years of development.
“Central Park and the public realm have been designed to provide a unique environment that will enrich the lives of everyone in Liverpool as well as the millions of people who visit the city every year and we’re looking forward to moving this project forward in 2023.”