Liverpool set to be first to use locally-led development corporation

Liverpool is set to the become the first city to establish a locally-led urban development corporation under powers established by the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act.

The city’s Strategic Futures Advisory Panel issued its final report this week, which set out plans for wholesale regeneration.

Its recommendations build on an interim report, published in November, which proposed the creation of a new partnership to lead development.

The final report suggested that this body be chaired by “an experienced private sector figure with demonstrable experience of holistic regeneration”.

It said the partnership would focus on accelerating development, developing and marketing a pipeline of prioritised development proposals and building a strong investable proposition for future allocations of government investment.

The group will have a specific focus on the arc linking Everton’s new Bramley Moore stadium on the waterfront to the Knowledge Quarter in the city centre.

This accelerated development zone has already seen an injection of £31m in funding from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities since the interim report.

After engagement with Homes England, the city council and other stakeholders following the interim report, it has been agreed that a new locally led development corporation will be the preferred model.

The development corporation will have legal powers including “dedicated planning powers as and whereas appropriate and speedier routes to compulsory purchase of land,” but under this new model it will be accountable to the local authority, rather than the secretary of state.

Liverpool City region mayor Steve Rotherham said: “The work of the panel has been an important reset in the way that strategic partners in the region work together and, I hope, offered a blueprint for better city region-wide cooperation and decision making moving forward.”

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Set up in the aftermath of the 2021 Caller Report, which delivered a damning assessment of the city council’s management of planning, highways, regeneration and property management, the panel includes Rotherham, Sir Howard Bernstein, former chief executive of Manchester City Council, and Baroness Judith Blake, former leader of Leeds City Council.

The report was endorsed by housing secretary Michael Gove.

He said the report “sets out a clear vision for building a better, stronger future for the citizens of Liverpool and the wider city region”.