PLANNING | Regenda and Lidl hope for Liverpool success

The retailer hopes to build a store and a Tim Hortons drive-thru at Great Homer Street, while the housing association intends to double the number of homes at its Grove Street estate.

Both proposals, along with the resubmission of a 33-unit Castle Street aparthotel, are recommended for approval at the council’s planning committee meeting on 22 March.

Grove Street Estate

The 3.7-acre Grove Street estate is bound by Myrtle Street and the University of Liverpool campus to the north, the Liverpool Women’s Hospital to the south-east and the Canning Street conservation area.

Owned by Liverpool City Council, the site is leased to and managed by Regenda, and comprises three-storey blocks of flats, which are to be demolished in a project for which consultation began in August 2019.

Of the 146 homes on site, 144 are socially rented, and their reprovision as such is part of the plan.

Regenda’s plan is for 304 homes in five plots:

Plot A.1: Grove Way: perimeter apartment block to Vine Street, Myrtle Street and Grove Street, ranging from five to nine storeys, set above a 1.5-storey podium, set back from Myrtle Street to retain the existing trees. This will include 108 homes, mostly one and two-bedroom, featuring social rent (55 apartments), affordable rent (3 apartments) and rent to buy (50 apartments). It will include 25 on-plot parking spaces and 104 cycle spaces, with commercial units at ground floor corners facing Myrtle Street, and community use at the south-west corner.

Plot A.2 Grovelands Court: perimeter apartment block around a central courtyard comprising apartment buildings to the north, east and west, ranging from three to six storeys. Terrace of townhouses to the south fronting Falkner Street of three to four storeys. Total of 75 homes, tenure a mix of rent to buy (34 apartments), privately rented (34 apartments) and private sale (seven houses). Seven on-street permit parking bays accessed from Vine Street, 64 cycle parking spaces.

Plot B Grove Close Pavilions: to the east of Crown Street and west of Brampton Drive, offering 89 homes. Four “pavilion” buildings arranged in pairs, staggered setbacks from the road frontage to enable retention of existing trees, ranging from four to six storeys. 89 homes, all one- or -two-bedroom, and entirely for social rent, with 24 on-plot parking spaces and 96 cycle spaces.

Plot C Crabtree Terrace: to the south of Falkner Street. A terraced row of three-storey houses, featuring 16 five-bedroom townhouses for private sale, each with a parking space

Plot D Groveside Villa: to the west of Vine Street. Apartment building of four storeys. featuring 16 homes, tenure is entirely private rent.  Twelve on-plot parking spaces, 20 cycle parking spaces.

Regenda’s professional team includes Metropolitan Workshop, BCA Landscape Architects and shedkm.

In the Great Homer Street area, Lidl GB hopes to build a store immediately north of Jennifer Avenue and the area’s new district centre, next to the Notre Dame Catholic College.

Typically for the group, the store will feature around 15,000 sq ft of retail floorspace in a building of slightly more than 20,000 sq ft. The store will be phase one of the project, with the drive-thru unit built out as phase two – elsewhere in Liverpool, Tim Hortons is partnering with rival operator Aldi at Speke Boulevard in a scheme approved in summer 2021.

The third item to be considered will be a project approved in December 2019, but for which legal agreement was never concluded. The plans from Prosperity Castle Street Development comprise a change of use from vacant office space to 33 serviced apartments.