Liverpool City Council appoints team of ‘placemaking experts’ to set out how the city’s so-called ‘Cultural Quarter’ can be regenerated in the next decade. Tony McDonough reports

Liverpool City Council has identified a 35-hectare area of the city centre, what it calls the “Cultural Quarter”, as a “significant regeneration opportunity”.

It has appointed a team of “placemaking experts”, led by LDA Design, to set out how the St George’s Gateway, which covers an area from Lime Street Station through to William Brown Street, can be regenerated in the next decade.

It includes some of the city’s most famous buildings such as 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 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.

This team also includes Haworth Tompkins, a Stirling Prize- winning architecture practice; PLACED a Liverpool based company who specialise in engaging communities; 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 and National Museums Liverpool, 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 in the same week 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 investment.

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.

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Cllr 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.

“This project represents a unique opportunity to re-shape this key gateway site and help the city to attract investors in creating a truly world-class experience to match the area’s unrivalled architecture and history.”