Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Liverpool resolves to approve 781-home development incorporating Grade II-listed Victorian rice mill

30 Oct 2014, 5:02 pm

Liverpool City Council has resolved to grant planning permission for a 781-home development in Liverpool's Baltic Triangle, after plans to demolish a Grade II-listed Victorian rice mill on the site were revised to incorporate the buildings as protected.

Developer One Park Lane submitted two applications to the Council in June, seeking permission for the redevelopment of 1.1 hectares of land to the south of Liverpool city centre into an 800-home, mixed use scheme with five new buildings up to 25 storeys high.

The proposals were withdrawn after campaign group Save Heap's Rice Mill applied successfully to have a former Victorian rice mill and warehouse complex, earmarked for demolition under the plans, Grade II-listed by English Heritage.

The developer submitted revised plans to the Council last month, incorporating the protected mill and reducing the heights of the proposed buildings. The revised scheme proposes a total of 781 new apartments in six buildings. The mill building, which will include a two-storey roof extension under the plans, will house 123 of the new apartments.

A planning officer's report produced for a meeting of the Council's planning committee on Tuesday said that, while the loss of the original internal structure of the mill under the plans was regrettable, "it is accepted that the inadequate floor to ceiling heights of the existing structure and the need to create suitable residential accommodation throughout the whole of the listed complex to make the scheme viable would appear to necessitate the removal of the original structure".

The remaining 658 apartments, 200 of which will be serviced, will be contained in five new buildings between 10 and 16 storeys in height. Over 1,500 square metres of commercial space has been proposed, within the ground and first floors of the buildings. The plans also include a new landscaped public courtyard, to be known as Baltic Square, and basement parking for 97 cars and 384 bicycles.

"A lot of credit is due to [the Council] for their advisory role and their responsiveness," said Elliot Lawless of One Park Lane in a statement. "We were working under tight deadlines because of our funders' needs and they pulled out all the stops to ensure a scheme which respects and preserves this lovely old building."

"Our objective is to be on site by the Spring so that we can bring this prominent site back into use as soon as possible."