Team picked to map 75-acre Liverpool opportunity

Architect Levitt Bernstein will lead a team made up of Montagu Evans, Arup, and Turner Works to draw up a supplementary planning document for the Pumpfields regeneration zone.

The team has been commissioned by Liverpool City Council to draft the SPD that will pave the way for investment to create a residential-led mixed-use community featuring homes for up to 10,000 people.

Pumpfields is located next to the area of North Liverpool, comprising Everton, Anfield, Kirkdale, and Bootle, that the city council has put forward for New Town consideration.

Together, Pumpfields and the New Town zone bid to transform a neglected area of the city, according to Cllr Nick Small, cabinet member for growth and development.

“The Pumpfields area is a vitally important part of our vision to expand out from the city centre into North Liverpool,” he said.

“It’s a part of Liverpool that’s been overlooked but its time has now come with the emergence of the New Town plan. Pumpfields is ripe for the type of regeneration that will redraw and reshape its economic and housing landscape for the rest of this century.”

The Pumpfields SPD will identify land for development, set design guidelines, outline how existing buildings could be reused, and put forward ideas for improvements to infrastructure.

The area forms part of the accelerated development zone identified by the Liverpool Strategic Futures Advisory Panel, chaired by Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram.

A report by the panel published earlier this year describes the area as a ‘long-term neglected and semi-derelict 75-acre zone on the northern edge of the city centre, with a history of failed and stalled sites’.

While developments such as Jarron’s 400-home Metalworks and Legacie’s 656-home Gateway are progressing in the area, there is a need for a comprehensive plan to underpin a vision for 10,000 homes and improved infrastructure, according to the panel.

The Pumpfields area is dissected by Vauxhall Road and extends northwards from Leeds Street as far as Chisendale Street and eastwards to Scotland Road.

Jo McCafferty, architect and director Levitt Bernstein, said the SPD would outline a “ground-breaking and deliverable vision”.

“[It will be a] vision that reactivates this key quarter in Liverpool, to stitch it back into the wider area, reintroduces crucial connections to the city centre and supports site specific, mixed-use development and re-uses heritage buildings and structures, is absolutely at the heart of this project.”