Liverpool City Council is set to start searching for a housing developer for a 28-acre site it spent £60m cleaning up.
The land, a former landfill site, was transformed to host the first International Garden Festival in 1984 as part of plans to regenerate the city and boost tourism after huge industrial decline and the Toxteth riots.
The council re-acquired the land in 2016 and this year completed a three-year remediation project, which involved the ‘mammoth’ excavation of 450,000 cubic metres of soil and waste.
The clean-up was paid for through grants from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and Homes England, as well as council funding.
With the site ready for development, the council hopes it will ‘significantly’ boost the city’s supply of homes, including affordable housing – although it has not indicated what proportion of properties should be affordable.
The local authority said development could ‘set the standard’ for sustainable housing in the UK, with hopes for a project that ‘maximises the use of renewable energy sources and minimises whole life-cycle costs and carbon emissions, whilst being resilient and futureproofed to climate change’.
Council leader Liam Robinson said: ‘The appointment of a development partner will see the completion of the International Garden Festival initiative and marks the final chapter in a 40-year story of a site which originally covered 250 acres.
‘It will also ensure that the UK’s only remaining Festival Gardens are preserved and enhanced for future generations to enjoy.’
