In his latest quarterly report on the Liverpool residential market, Alan Bevan of City Residential says the refusal of a major development could damage fragile investor confidence further. Tony McDonough reports
A commitment by Liverpool City Council to get the development pipeline moving risks being undermined by the refusal of a major residential scheme in December.
That is the view of Alan Bevan, managing director of City Residential. In his latest quarterly analysis of the local residential market Alan has praised the city council for reaching out to developers since the “dark days” following the Max Caller report.
Published in 2021, the report identified a “fundamental failure of governance” at the council and saw Government commissioners take over three council departments – property, regeneration and highways.
This, said Alan, led to a period of stalled developments and investors losing money as the city struggled to regain its credibility.
Since then, Alan says both council leader Liam Robinson and chief executive Andrew Lewis, have made efforts to reach out to developers and investors with a number of events. This, he added, sent a message the city was once again “open for business”.
However, in early December the city’s planning committee unanimously rejected a multi-million pound plan by Carpenter Investments to build 261 apartments at One Kings Dock Street in the Baltic Triangle. This is despite planning officers recommending approval.
Councillors were concerned at the lack of affordable housing and Section 106 payments (this is money developers pay for improvements to the local community). Officers had agreed that both these aspects would damage the scheme’s viability.
Alan said: “The application for this development was first submitted in November 2022 after months of pre-applications and discussions with the council.
“After numerous changes and tweaks to comply with local plan and other policy requirements the application went to the planning committee on December 5 with a full recommendation for approval from the planning officers.
“Despite this recommendation the scheme was unanimously refused with the councilors citing concerns over affordable housing and section 106 payments.
“This was despite the recommendation for approval highlighting that viability challenges meant that the scheme would not be able to offer affordable housing/full 106 payments, something that the planning officers fully agreed with.”
He added that prior to the decision the council seemed to be making “serious progress” on engaging with developers and investors.
“Delivering on this new optimism is essential,” he explained. “Many developers and funders are still very sceptical of the city but have been starting to sit up and take notice in the belief that we may well have turned the corner.
“They have heard the positivity and promises before and been disappointed and let down… We must show the doubters evidence, not just promise it.”
He went on: “Liverpool, like many cities, is experiencing a severe shortage of decent quality residential accommodation to let. This scheme would go some way to helping alleviate some of the supply/demand imbalances.
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“While it may not offer any affordable housing a continued increase of supply of property to rent will help reduce rental price inflation and help with affordability of housing.
“Refusing schemes such as these will only result in a continued upward pressure on rental inflation. Then there’s the near £1m of council tax receipts per year that the scheme would produce. What is the likelihood of more refusals?”