A trio of developers is backing a call by Liverpool City Council opposition leader Richard Kemp for a new body to vet major property schemes – but would it have any power? Tony McDonough reports
Leading Liverpool developers are backing a the setting up of a ‘property taskforce’ to regulate major schemes in the city – but it is not clear how it would work or what power it would have.
In the last couple of years Liverpool has seen the collapse of a number of high profile property schemes and businesses, including the New Chinatown project. Last week it was revealed the main holding company of the Signature Living group, had also collapsed.
Although Signature Living Hotel Ltd is now in administration, other parts of the Signature group are still trading, including the Shankly and Dixie Dean Hotels and bar and restaurant Alma de Cuba in Liverpool city centre.
Last week, opposition Lib Dem leader on Liverpool City Council, Richard Kemp, said the council should take more responsibility for the vetting of major schemes and suggested a taskforce of institutional investors be created to oversee the process.
Cllr Kemp explained: “The alternative is to have a new wave of poorly financed speculators buying up assets on the cheap and also of some assets never being developed and being left, like the Paramount scheme in London Road, in an increasing dangerous and unsightly state.”
His idea has the backing of a number of Liverpool developers, including Legacie Developments, Mersey Regeneration and Romal Capital. All have successfully delivered projects in the city.
Legacie is currently on site at Parliament Square, a £90m residential scheme in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle. Founder John Morley said: “Developers should welcome regulation. We’ve said before that a panel should be created to consider major developments in the city and it should be led by people who have successfully delivered these sorts of projects before.
“Developers should work with planning officials and we would be happy to assist where we can. There has been a lot of concern and negativity around developments failing but there are also so many success stories which should be recognised.
“We live in a great city and we have a great future but we are keen that any major construction projects are regulated. Developers should welcome regulation.”
However, there are big questions marks over how such a body would operate and what kind of power it would have. At the moment property schemes, from kitchen extensions to multi-million pound projects, are approved or rejected by the council’s planning committee.
Planning officers make recommendations to the committee which are usually rubber stamped when councillors meet. Planning law is set by central government and local authorities have little scope to refuse an application if it complies with the law.
On occasions when councillors go against the recommendations of their planning officers and refuse an application, the decision will often then be overturned on appeal with the council landed with the bill for the process.
Concern has been also been expressed about how schemes are funded, with a particular worry about the fractional investment model. But the regulation of investment is outside the authority of local councils and rests with other regulatory bodies.
There is also a question of how appropriate it would be for developers to be given the power to pass judgement on their commercial rivals.
One former Liverpool Labour councillor and cabinet member, James Noakes, said: “This sounds, at first, like an idea. But how does it work in practice? What powers can it have? How would it differ from the scrutiny panel that Liverpool Council had? I’m afraid this seems as if it hasn’t been thought of further than the PR.”