Liverpool City Council set to receive £55m to ‘unlock’ 2,350-home brownfield scheme

Liverpool City Council is set to receive £55m in funding from Homes England which it said is needed to unlock a 2,350-home development.

The grant, from the Brownfield Infrastructure Fund will be used to part-fund site remediation and deliver infrastructure to allow the development of Central Docks. The authority’s cabinet is expected at a meeting this evening to agree to go ahead with negotiations over the grant funding.

Central Docks is one of five new developments which make up Liverpool Waters, a project to deliver 9,000 homes and 300,000 sq m of commercial space on derelict former dockland sites owned by Peel Land & Property Developments.

The Central Docks development is projected to generate £500m of private investment and will see a public park delivered in addition to the 2,350 homes on the 10.5ha site.

A report by council officers said: “Given the site constraints of this previously developed land, redevelopment is not feasible without public sector intervention to part fund site remediation and infrastructure delivery to provide a serviced development platform for viable follow-on development.”

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The funding for the site is still subject to final approval from the treasury. However chancellor Rachel Reeves mentioned the Central Docks scheme in her first speech to the treasury last week.

She said: “We will create a new taskforce to accelerate stalled housing sites in our country. Beginning with Liverpool Central Docks, Worcester Parkway, Northstowe and Langley Sutton Coldfield - representing more than 14,000 homes.”