Hunt for buyer for city site after £60m clean-up

It has cost about £60m to clean up the Festival Garden site so housing can be built on it

City leaders are on the look out for a developer to buy a major site in south Liverpool.

The Festival Gardens land in the south of the city has cost up to £60m to clean up since it was bought by the council in 2016.

The authority said a development there "could set the standard for sustainable housing developments in the UK".

Opposition figures said given the amount of public money that had gone into the scheme, affordable housing needed to be a key feature of it.

The Festival Gardens site, near Otterspool promenade, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1984.

Michael Heseltine, who came to Liverpool after the 1981 Toxteth riots with a view to regenerating parts of the city, was pivotal in its creation.

Her Majesty the Queen opened the Festival Garden site in 1984

The 100-acre, heavily polluted site had to be cleaned up in order to be turned into the garden site.

In recent years, 28 acres of the site - which had been a landfill - have had to be cleaned up ready to be sold on to developers.

A council report to go before city leaders next week states that grants would have to be paid back if a developer was not found.

The report also warns that if the site was used for something other than housing, the council would also be liable for paying back funding.

Council leader Liam Robinson said: "We know how well-loved this area is and want to make sure that we are doing as much as we can to ensure this prime waterfront land has the potential to be a flagship development that sets the standard for sustainable housing in the UK."

'Footing the bill'

The recently-elected Labour government has said it wants to see 1.5 million new homes built over the life of this parliament, although campaign groups such as Shelter have said affordable and social rent housing needs to be built by councils.

The charity said earlier this month that "private developers will not meet the target 1.5 million homes by themselves".

While the council's report does indicate some "affordable" housing will be part of the scheme, there is no indication at present as to what proportion of any Festival Garden site project would need to meet the definition.

Liverpool Liberal Democrat leader Carl Cashman said: "As the public are footing the bill for getting this and other pieces of land ready for private developers to make a profit from, the council needs to make sure it gets a percentage of the development for affordable housing."

Independent Mirna Juarez, who had previously called for an investigation into the costs at the site, said it was important to make sure there was infrastructure for housing built there.

"The whole area needs to be thought out for the benefit of the people going there," she said.

"There's no point just putting loads of housing in and then everyone has to get in their cars to go and get a pint of milk."