The public are to be asked for their views on a new masterplan for one of the UK’s creative hot-spots, the Baltic Triangle.
A report to Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet next Friday (7 February) is recommending a public consultation be launched on the Baltic Triangle’s draft Spatial Regeneration Framework (SRF) – which has been designed to guide the area’s future development.
If approved by cabinet the draft SRF, produced by LDA Design who led the masterplanning for the regeneration of London’s Olympic Park, will go out to a five week consultation beginning on Monday, 17 February.
Key recommendations within the Baltic Triangle’s draft SRF include:
- Enhancing connectivity, specifically pedestrian and cycle routes
- Creating green corridors, linking into the city’s £3.4m Urban GreenUp project
- Protecting open spaces and setting open space design guidelines, including specifically for Baltic Green and Baltic Park
- Encouraging a balanced mix of housing types and homes for families
- Ensuring buildings have active ground floor uses
- The potential for a Conservation Area
- Implementing the Agent of Change policy
- Support for a new rail station
The draft SRF also identifies the following four Areas of Change and sets design guidelines for each that deal with considerations such as scale and design, connectivity, heritage and green infrastructure:
- Police HQ and Heaps Mill
- Wapping Goods Terminal
- Flint Street South
- Cains Brewery Village and Hill Street Corridor
The Baltic Triangle covers 37.6 hectares of mixed-use land on the southern fringe of the city centre and is home to many digital and creative industries as well as popular night-time economy venues
The area has boomed in the past decade, fuelled by a blossoming creative and digital sector overseen by the Baltic Creative and Baltic Triangle Area CICs – and has attracted significant levels of development. Since January 2012, £128 million has been invested in new developments with a further £62 million currently on site.
However, the area has also seen significant growth in residential development over the past decade – with a doubling in its population – and there has been an ever-increasing development pressure on the remaining available land.
Following the consultation and further amends, the draft SRF will return to cabinet to be approved for use in guiding planning applications in the area. It will be endorsed as a Supplementary Planning Document following adoption of Liverpool’s 15 year Local Plan, which is expected to come into force in early 2021.
