Liverpool City Council to create new public realm strategy

Liverpool City Council has appointed an award-winning team of urban designers, landscape architects and planners to develop a Public Realm Strategy that will shape the look and feel of the city for the next 50 years.

LDA Design has a strong track record of transforming public realm, having led the design for the public realm and parklands of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. They are now designing the public realm for Stratford Waterfront and London’s South Bank.

LDA Design is currently working for Liverpool City Council on a Spatial Regeneration Framework (SRF) to guide the future development of the Baltic Triangle area, to the south of the city centre.

The draft Public Realm Strategy will go out to public consultation next year. It will provide a detailed planning framework to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the design and management of streets and open spaces. Its implementation will also support the city’s continuing economic and social regeneration and will be deigned to meet the needs of all users, including children, older people and people living with disabilities.

The Strategy will underpin Liverpool’s renaissance, with £14bn of development schemes either underway or in the pipeline over the coming decade.

The Strategy aims to:

• delivering high quality public realm
• envisaging a better connected citycentre that is more welcoming and easier to understand and get around
• creating opportunity to dwell and engage
• contributing to sustainable development principles
• reinforcing the city centre as a great location for business, homes, play, culture and tourism
• complementing the Liverpool City Centre Connectivity Scheme and upcoming Public Art Strategy

The Strategy will also reflects the aims of the current Strategic Regeneration Frameworks/ Supplementary Planning Documents planned for the city centre at:

• Cavern Quarter/ Williamson Square
• Commercial Business District
• Upper Central
• The Baltic Triangle

The Strategy will be used as a Supplementary Planning Document once Liverpool’s 15 year Local Plan is adopted, late 2020. It will guide the city’s continuing economic and social regeneration and support and promote the Council’s declared Climate Change Emergency and environmentally friendly policies.

Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson said: “Liverpool is undergoing an unprecedented renaissance with billions of pounds reshaping the city’s economy – but we need an overarching vision to glue all this regeneration activity together.

“How a city looks and feels at a human level is vital to its success – as the Liverpool ONE development has proved. We now have a number of masterplans all looking to foster growth across the city centre but the quality of our public spaces and streets needs to be consistent and complementary.

“We take great pride in the fact that the city wins awards for its world class welcome – but that experience needs to continue right through to the benches people sit on, the directional signs they need to read right through to the planting and lighting in our squares and streets.

“I look forward to seeing the development of this public realm strategy and would encourage all our residents and businesses to give their input to shape its direction and help further fuel to the Liverpool Powerhouse.”

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