Liverpool is a big city that is always changing.
The city council meets regularly to discuss, deliberate and decide on whether some of the larger, more complex or more controversial planning applications should be approved or rejected.
The committee is next due to meet at Liverpool Town Hall on Tuesday (March 1), and we've taken a look at the major plans they will be discussing on the day.
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Dine-in food market for Bold Street
A potentially exciting addition to the already impressive Bold Street food and drink offering will be discussed.
Manchester-based food and drink operator Mission Mars is aiming to open a new food market, going by the name of Zumhof Biergarten, in what used to be the Liv Organic and Natural Food Market in Radiant House in Bold Street.
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The plans suggest Zumhof Biergarten will provide a 'new take on the indoor food market sector which is growing across the UK' and will operate as a dine-in food market and drinking venue with a range of artisan food spaces and bars serving Bavarian and local beers.
There are also plans for a number of kitchens to be let out to independent food retailers.
Mission Mars have already opened a Zumhof Biergarten in Birmingham's trendy Digbeth area.
The company is not new to Liverpool, having already opened the Albert's Shenke Bier Halle and Cook Haus in Hanover Street in 2019 as well as two branches of Rudy's Pizza.
Pub to be knocked down and replaced with Home Bargains
The demolition of a historic pub to make way for a Home Bargains is expected to go ahead after a lengthy delay.
Planning permission had initially been given for the Bridge Inn in Belle Vale to be knocked down in September 2020 in place of a branch of the budget store.
However, work is yet to begin on the site on Childwall Valley Road and Liverpool Council’s planning committee is expected to sign off on an application to relocate a substation on the site to meet operational requirements and because of high costs associated with running the substation in its current position.
A Section 106 legal agreement was agreed between the applicant TJ Morris, Home Bargains’ parent company, and the city council in February last year, which had been expected to be the final hurdle for the project.
This will also now need to be amended.
The Bridge Inn, said to have been built in 1938, has been closed for some time and is boarded up while it occupies a prominent position on a busy junction and is a “locally recognised landmark” according to planning documents.
If approved, the demolition will make way for a Home Bargains store facing on to Childwall Valley Road towards the eastern corner with Kings Road.
A total of 91 parking spaces will be provided, down two as a result of the relocation of the substation.
Plans for 'lockdown party flats'
A bit of a controversial one this.
Plans have been submitted to Liverpool which could see three short term letting apartments at Number 7 Sweeting Street in the city centre given retrospective planning permission.
According to planning documents, the proposal site was converted to residential accommodation, creating three two-bed flats without planning permission - but this was retrospectively approved including specific conditions.
But those conditions were not complied with and the apartments have been in use without the benefit of planning permission, as serviced apartments.
The applicant, listed in the planning papers as Luke Braithwaite, was issued with a letter from the council's planning enforcement team on August 18 2020 telling him that planning permission was required and that the use must stop.
A new application has now been submitted which seeks to retain the use of the building as three short-term letting apartments.
This move has been objected to by City Centre Councillor Nick Small, who pointed to complaints made about the apartments during one of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
In Cllr Small's representations, he states: "It should be noted that there have been a significant number of complaints made about this property including a large illegal party held on 6 and 7 August in breach of lockdown."
Despite these complaints, the planning officers are recommending that the application is approved at Tuesday's meeting.
Aintree Hospital expansion
Plans have been lodged to extend the accident and emergency (A&E) department at Aintree University Hospital.
A proposal has been put to Liverpool Council’s planning committee by Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to add a three storey extension to the existing A&E and theatre departments.
It is said that the extension would be “critical to the delivery of the hospital’s services” including the provision of specialist emergency stroke care alongside the existing A&E department on the ground floor, with the benefits of adjacencies to the existing radiology and A&E facilities.
The site is positioned within the south part of the hospital estate, comprising the newer additions to the hospital including the Elective Care Centre, Clatterbridge Centre, and the urgent care and trauma centre extension to the front of the hospital.
The application adds that the development would provide a “reconfigured and expanded” theatre department, with two new ‘hybrid’ theatres which comprise of real time diagnostic imaging during the operational procedure.
This would help “improve patient outcomes, speed recovery time and reduce the period of treatment time for the patient,” according to the plans, which will go before Liverpool Council’s planning committee on Tuesday March 1.
A trio of new ambulance bays would also be created as part of the new layout, extending the current provision located to the front of the A&E Department off the hospital’s internal circulatory road.
The hospital’s ‘Nurses in Motion’ statue and time capsule would be relocated to the north of the proposed new layout.
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