Liverpool to approve Melwood transformation
While plans to redevelop Liverpool FC’s former training ground into homes are in line for approval, proposals to increase the size of a hotel at Allerton Manor Golf Course are to be rejected.
Melwood training ground
Liverpool FC relocated in 2020. Credit: via planning documents
Developer: Torus
Architect: Matt Brook Architects
Planner: Turley
Planning reference: 21F/2551
Torus submitted its plans to redevelop the 12-acre Deysbrook Road site in September 2021.
The developer wants to build a 96-flat extra-care facility comprising a three-storey block on the corner of Melwood Drive and Crown Road. Eight of these apartments would be designed specifically for people living with dementia.
Torus’s plans also feature 66 houses with a mix of two-, three- and four-bedroom properties available on affordable tenures.
The existing training facilities building is to be retained and used as a sports academy run by ex-Liverpool players Jamie Carragher and Robbie Fowler. A new full-size 3G pitch will be delivered immediately east of the retained building.
Liverpool City Council’s planning team has recommended the scheme, which will benefit from £2.4m of brownfield funding from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, be approved subject to conditions.
These conditions include payment of a £314,738 contribution to be used by the city council towards improvements to the playing surfaces at the Walker Playing Fields.
Housebuilder Torus bought Melwood from Liverpool FC in 2019 and the club relocated to the £50m Axa Training Centre in Kirkby in 2020, paving the way for the developer to progress the scheme.
The project team for the Melwood redevelopment features HL Structural Engineers, landscape architects Exterior Architecture, and Prime Transport Planning.
43 objections have been lodged against the proposal.
Allerton Manor Golf Course
Brock Carmichael is the scheme’s architect. Credit: via planning documents
Developer: Green Circle/Allerton Golf Trading
Architect: Brock Carmichael
Planner: Roman Summer Associates
Planning reference: 21F/2913
Plans for the £15m redevelopment of the Liverpool golf club were approved in September 2020 before being deemed unviable. Now, proposals to more than double the size of the scheme’s four-star hotel are in line for rejection.
Liverpool City Council’s planning team has recommended the project be refused, saying the revised scheme is “not sympathetic or respectful to the character of this part of the designated Calderstones/ Woolton Green Wedge”.
The scale, massing, height and architectural language of the hotel “fail to conserve the significance of the designated heritage assets”, according to planning officers.
Allerton Golf Trading wants to build a 66-bedroom hotel by extending the grade two-listed Manor house upwards by four storeys.
The earlier approved iteration of the scheme proposed a 31-bedroom boutique hotel.
Following the success of the first scheme, the developer sought to increase the size of the scheme to make it viable as the rising cost of materials and the impact of the pandemic had eaten into the project’s margins.
Other elements of the scheme remained unchanged. Namely the reconfiguration of the golf course to create a par 72 championship-grade course.
A new clubhouse and adventure golf facilities also feature within the proposals.
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Re Allerton Golf Course, here we go again, everything has to be sympathetic with it`s surroundings, or the scale and the massing is wrong, these are just easy excuses to hide behind when you don`t ever want something to happen.
I see other modern buildings near Calderstones yet they are deemed ok, and this development will bring activity and make a business more viable, but the impression we get as ever is Liverpool is anti-business.
Their mantra is “sympathetic”, the word I`d use is “pathetic”.
By Anonymous
Anonymous, but they granted an earlier scheme that presumably was sympathetic and balanced the needs of the development with that of designated heritage. As such it would appear to be unfounded to say that they “don’t ever want something to happen” when there is a consented scheme in place.
Some may say that this latest scheme is someone chancing their arm, seeing what more they can get away with by using the existing approval as a base, and that’s just to be expected in the game that is planning.
By JohnMac
Remind again how Maghull Developments got their hands on this ex LCC golf course again?
By Old Hall Street
So if the first accepted plans are not viable due to sising costs then it may not happen, well done Liverpool Planners, you`ve no high-rise applications to refuse in the city centre because you`ve put off all the developers so now you can tirn your attention to a 4 storey proposal elsewhere and fall back on the heritage get-out.
By Anonymous
Great quality development by Torus at melwood. Real boost for west Derby… the area really I need of sporting and facilities for older people
By George