Regeneration goals
ANEW home for Everton Football Club at Liverpool’s Bramley Moore Dock could provide a £1billion boost to the local economy and pave the way for 1,650 new homes in the city’s North Docks. Although still at consultation stage, the Premier League club’s move from Goodison Park would speed up the £5.5billion regeneration of Peel Land and Property’s Liverpool Waters, which is expected to include a new creative district – Ten Streets – and a new cruise terminal to boost tourism in the city and beyond.
The Everton stadium has been heralded a “game-changer” for the city, bringing an estimated £900million Gross Value Added to the region’s economy through creating 12,000 jobs during the construction phase and channelling £255million through local supply chains and services.
“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Liverpool to embrace one of the most significant and unique regenerative investments the city has ever seen,” says Iain Jenkinson, senior director of planning and development at real estate and investment firm CBRE, which is working with Everton on the stadium project.
“The economic contribution to the city of Liverpool through Everton’s new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock, the catalytic effect it will have on surrounding neighbourhoods, and the equally important Goodison legacy project make this package of projects a game-changer for the city,” says Jenkinson. “In addition, it will further enhance the city’s international reputation for delivering major transformational projects on such a large scale.”
This reputation has been built on the transformation of Liverpool’s 19th-century Albert Dock from dereliction in the early 1980s to a Unesco World Heritage site today.
Now full of shops, bars, restaurants and museums, along with neighbouring Pier Head, the Grade I listed waterfront has plans to build a new pavilion along Salthouse Quay to act as a more pedestrian-friendly gateway to the waterfront and connect up to Liverpool One shopping centre and the rest of the city.
In the past few years contemporary-styled new-build flats have been snapped up on the waterfront and older buildings renovated and transformed into residential property.
As Simon Macbryde, chairman and managing director of Macbryde Homes, says: “The changes that Liverpool city centre has gone through in recent years are phenomenal and there’s no doubting that Merseyside is an increasingly in-demand area among all purchasers.
“Now, more than ever, Liverpool is a desirable area for families, first-time buyers and downsizers alike to consider.”
Macbryde Homes has a new development of four-bedroom family homes at Kingswood Manor, a 10-minute drive from the city centre, in Woolton Village, which has independent shops, restaurants and pubs and easy access to transport links.
Just one house on the 10-house development remains for sale, the show home, which is on the market for £699,995 including curtains, carpets and landscaping (07885 875539; macbryde-homes.co.uk).
“Our Kingswood Manor development is on the doorstep of Liverpool’s exceptional local employment market and the area’s enviable transport connections,” adds Macbryde.
More family-sized new-build homes include Redrow’s nearby Woolton Fields, just around the corner from where John Lennon grew up, in Woolton.
Three and four-bedroom detached houses are for sale from £389,995 (0151 515 1846; redrow.co.uk).
On the outskirts, six miles from the city at Aintree near the Grand National racecourse, Persimmon Homes North West is building mews homes, detached and semi-detached houses at The Paddocks, where prices for three-bedroom detached houses start from £169,995 and four-bedroom detached houses from £221,995 (0151 541 2860; persimmonhomes. com).
With more homes due to be built in the old docklands area, what is the betting that Liverpool is odds-on favourite to become the North West’s most exciting city?