Major plans for Liverpool’s Cultural Quarter announced

The cultural quarter of Liverpool city centre is to be the subject of a transformational new masterplan.

Liverpool City Council has appointed a team of placemaking experts, led by LDA Design, to set out how the city’s cultural quarter, known as, St George’s Gateway can be regenerated over the coming decade.

The 35-hectare site, which covers an area from Lime Street Station through to William Brown Street, encompasses some of the city’s most famous buildings like St George’s Hall, Liverpool Empire Theatre, the Walker Art Gallery, and World Museum Liverpool and regularly plays host to hundreds of thousands of people at some of the city’s major showpiece public and civic events.

St George’s Gateway has been identified as presenting one of Liverpool’s most significant regeneration opportunities with huge development potential to be unlocked due to the removal of the Churchill Way Flyovers.

LDA Design is one of the UK’s leading masterplanning, urban design, planning and landscape design practices. The team also includes Haworth Tompkins, a Stirling Prize- winning architecture practice; PLACED a Liverpool based company who specialise in engaging communities on the built environment; and Aspinal Verdi who will ensure the plan is deliverable. WSP, Pegasus and Hatch complete this multidisciplinary team.

Liverpool City Council, partnered with Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) and National Museums Liverpool (NML), to commission the team to create a framework that sets out “the development of a transformational future which is both visionary, ambitious and deliverable.”

The announcement comes the day after the Council announced the formation of a new regeneration board for the city – Imagine Liverpool– which has been tasked with accelerating the development of major schemes and helping to attract new private and Government investment. Their work has already begun with some board members joining a city delegation to the launch of UKREiiF today, the annual conference for the nation’s property sector, to promote a number of investment opportunities.

A key aim of the St George’s Gateway draft masterplan is to also enhance connectivity, specifically to the wider city centre and adjoining communities set within this world class public realm.

The St George’s Gateway framework will also need to complement the master planning for nearby Pumpfields area which is focused on attracting investment to create a vibrant, residential led mixed-use neighbourhood on the northern fringe of the city centre.

This piece of work is also seen as a key component to complement the recently announced New Town Taskforce submission, which spans 5km from just north of Liverpool city centre, across Everton, Anfield, and Kirkdale and into Bootle and Sefton.

Once approved by the Council, the framework will be adopted as a Supplementary Planning Document to aid decision making, facilitate delivery and provide certainty for investors.

The St George’s Gateway framework is underpinned by six guiding principles, based on enhancing the quality of the place and its environment:

• Set out detailed public realm and landscape interventions, with a clear strategy for reconnecting this part of the city centre with an emphasis on improved walkability, active travel, legibility and permeability, connecting this area and north Liverpool into the city centre.

• Propose deliverable transport improvements and interventions in the context of an emerging city centre mobility strategy (Urban Mobility and Public Spaces Strategy), and a drive towards active travel and net zero.

• Promote introduction of green space for enhanced biodiversity, climate mitigation, improved placemaking, creating of micro-climates and capture of surface water run-off. 

• Identify and propose interventions to unlock and maximise the value of potential development sites and land use strategy.

• Set out potential interventions for the creative reuse of derelict or under used buildings.

• Set design codes for the area; character areas; and sites including appropriate use and design/place requirements which respond to unique character and context.

Councillor Nick Small, Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet member for Growth and Development, said:

“The future development of St George’s Gateway is a hugely critical part of our vision to the next phase in the regeneration of Liverpool city centre and how it connects into North Liverpool.

Dr Aileen Jones, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (External Engagement and Partnerships) at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), said:

“St George’s Gateway, which incorporates LJMU’s City Campus, is a world-class cultural area and a key gateway site. We look forward to continuing to engage with our partners throughout the process to bring forward a development that will further enhance our city for the benefit of our communities.”

Laura Pye, Director of National Museums Liverpool, said:

“We are pleased to be working with Liverpool City Council and Liverpool John Moores University to fully realise the vision for St George’s Gateway. Two of our major cultural venues World Museum and Walker Art Gallery have sat proudly on William Brown Street for the past 150 years and have welcomed millions of visitors in that time.

“World Museum holds significant natural history and Egyptology collections and houses an active team of expert curators in botany, entomology, zoology, geology and other specialisms, who frequently support global research projects.

“Walker Art Gallery is an international destination for art lovers, housing classical masterpieces from the Pre-Raphaelites to contemporary works, and hosts the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize, the UK’s longest-running painting competition. We look forward to them being integral to St George’s Gateway becoming a major destination in Liverpool for future generations to continue to enjoy.”

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