imposed, both at the insistence of the funders, will mean long life spans and so we hope we will not be digging the streets up in 5 years time and so on.
Public consultation
The scheme was built in extra quick time too. In 1999/2000 when we won Liverpool One and we did not know then that in 2003 Liverpool would enter and win the European Capital of Culture designation for 2008 so we had to get the project completed in time for that. Developers always hope to get things done, and then when they have to get them done, it becomes a very different challenge. So this accelerated timetable was a huge challenge. We knocked down our first building in 2004 and the project was pretty much fully opened in October 2008 after over a billion pounds of investment over 42 and a half acres. The outline timetable achieved was
● 1999 Grosvenor selected ● 2001 Master Plan prepared, planning application made
● 2002 outline planning consent for our master plan achieved
● 2003 CPOs prepared and approved
● 2004 Started getting building contracts in place and acquiring the land
● End 2004 and 2005 Funding in place, start work on site ● Planned 3-year build
● 2008 First phase of half the scheme opened in May and the other half opened in October.
Of course with such a big site it was not possible, in 2005, to just close down the whole area and “start work on site”. For example we had to relocate the BBC Radio Merseyside and this involved building a new BBC studios, finishing and fitting out before we could move them across and then take possession of their old building to knock down. There was an operational fire station on site, and we had to find them a site, build them a new fire station, get it operational and move them across too. Plus there were a number of decants to be done to make this development happen.
Public consultation was very important and when Grosvenor says consultation we mean consultation. At this point Rod moved up to Liverpool to ensure that the people got fully involved in the project. If someone wrote to the local paper saying “Grosvenor are not listening to me as a consultee” then whether it was true or not Rod would personally approach that person and say, “Right if you are that serious about it you start coming to our development design workshop with your views.” He wanted them fully involved and to buy into the project. The next consultation meeting would then involve the usual 30 people sitting around the table plus the one who had complained about the consultation process with the result that he or she got fully involved and in the end said, “Sorry I was completely wrong, and I think that you have considered this (whatever the problem was) and I completely understand it now.” We gave everybody a chance to become fully involved. We had staff from the University, students from the University who wanted to get involved, we had bystanders, and indeed anybody who wanted to come along to the development workshops on a Wednesday could sit in and join in the process.
Design
We also had to have interesting buildings and with 30 architects you are bound to get some interesting buildings and this is an example of probably the most unusual building, our problem child of Liverpool One.
56
Guy Butler
ASSET - Liverpool-10
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