Liverpool is to develop a master plan for its Baltic Triangle

The Baltic Triangle – a place for creatives, for hipsters, for party goers and more recently for food lovers.

Covering 37.6 hectares of mixed-use land, it is home to many digital and creative industries as well as some of our most popular night-time venues, many of which are located in the historical built fabric.

Liverpool City Council has now appointed an award-winning team of urban designers and planners to create a new masterplan for one of the UK’s creative hot-spots.

LDA Design, who led the masterplanning for the regeneration of London’s Olympic Park, is to draft a Spatial Regeneration Framework  to guide the future development of the Baltic Triangle area, which lies just to the south of Liverpool City Centre.

As a result of the area’s proximity to the City Centre and its new popularity – fuelled by a blossoming creative and digital sector overseen by the Baltic Creative and Baltic Triangle C.I.Cs – it has attracted significant levels of development. Since January 2012, £128 million has been invested in new developments with a further £62 million currently on site.

However, the area has also seen significant growth in residential development over the past decade – with a doubling in its population – and there has been an ever-increasing development pressure on the remaining available land. Read more about the Constellations take over and how it could affect the area here.

This new report will build on the Baltic Triangle Development Framework, endorsed by the council in December 2017, which set out a number of design and development principles.

The draft SRF, which will include an expanded area incorporating Cains Brewery and surrounding neighbourhood south of upper Parliament Street, will go out to public consultation in the summer and once adopted by the council would be used as a Supplementary Planning Document to inform any planning applications in the area.

MORE: Everything you need to know about Cains Brewery Village

Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson said: “The development of the Baltic Triangle is one of Liverpool’s great success stories of the past decade and this new masterplan will help guide and ensure this growth continues for the decades to come.

“Consultation with businesses and residents will be crucial to how this plan is shaped and I’m delighted we’ve appointed an internationally respected team of designers and planners who value community led design to oversee this process.

“The area’s position as one of Britain’s fastest-growing digital and creative hubs is something the city takes great pride in and we want to nurture this to ensure its future as a major engine in our economy.”

Baltic Triangle

Once adopted the SPD would be incorporated in to Liverpool’s 15 year Local Plan, which has set out key planning issues to support the city’s creative cluster:

-Supporting and encouraging further investment into creative and digital industries

-Balancing conflicts between night time uses and residential amenity

-Ensuring a sustainable residential neighbourhood within the L1 area

-Improving connectivity within the area and with other parts of the City Centre

-Bringing derelict land and vacant and underused buildings back into use

Photo Credit: Josh Evans

LDA Design is one of the UKs leading urban design and landscape architecture consultancies and alongside their work at Stratford after the London 2012 Olympics, they also led on the masterplan for University College London’s pioneering new campus UCL East, as well as the public realm work at Stratford Waterfront and Here East.

MORE: Threshold Festival 2019 will take over Baltic Triangle this Spring – Here’s who is playing

Mark Graham, Director of LDA, said: “The Baltic Triangle is renowned as one of the most creative and independent districts in the UK, with a growing global reputation, and has seen huge growth over recent years. The complexity of the place brings significant challenges and opportunities, this work will set a framework that outlines the positive future growth of the area. We are delighted to be part of it.

It has been clear from the outset that the community of the Baltic Triangle must sit at the heart of this work and play their part in shaping its future, we will therefore be working collaboratively to deliver a shared vision for the area. This aligns perfectly with LDA Design’s landscape-led approach to masterplanning which places people at the centre of design process. We look forward to working closely with local residents, businesses and landowners within the Baltic Triangle.”

Liverpool City Council recently produced and endorsed an SRF for the Ten Streets Creativity District and is currently producing an SRF to guide the future development for the Knowledge Quarter Gateway and Liverpool’s Commercial District.

LDA Design will be supported by an expert team of consultants including property consultancy Jones Lang LeSalle, international engineering firm Mott Macdonald, heritage specialist Robert Bevan and the digital marketing and place making specialists DS.Emotion.

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