We have picked out seven transformational developments that could reshape the way our region looks
New images show what a rebuilt and revamped Liverpool Central Station could look like(Image: Liverpool City Region Combined Authority)
Merseyside is an exciting and ever-evolving region. At any one time, there are plans and proposals looking to reshape and redesign the places where we live, work and play and 2026 will be no different.
Whether it is grand ambitions to completely reshape Liverpool city centre, a vision to transform Bootle or ongoing plans to regenerate the Wirral coastline – there are so many huge projects that we can expect to see major progress on across this new year that we now find ourselves in.
The ECHO has taken a closer look at seven of the key projects looking to reimagine this fine region of ours and how things could start to take shape in 2026.
King Edward Triangle
Ask anyone in and around Liverpool’s corridors of power what developments they are most excited about and the King Edward Triangle plans will almost certainly be mentioned.
This is a £1 billion scheme that could change the face of the city’s waterfront, with nearly 3,000 new homes and 400 hotel rooms created in a cluster of skyscrapers on land known as the King Edward Triangle, close to The Strand.
The land has been bought by KEIE, part of the TJ Morris group which owns Home Bargains. They are working on the huge project with Beetham, who built the 40-floor West Tower. The transformational plans promise to create a 5-star hotel as part of a 60-storey building that will be the tallest in the city. There is also a vision for a new events arena to be created.
The draft image of the vision for the King Edward Triangle skyscraper project.(Image: Liverpool Council / Beetham / KEIE Limited)
The plans moved forward considerably in 2025, with the first planning application submitted for the site – for a 28-storey building – and further plans submitted to demolish a collection of unlisted buildings around the northern boundary of the site.
Liverpool Council’s cabinet also signed off on the sale of land at Great Howard Street as part of the scheme. Expect more detailed plans to come forward in 2026.
Littlewoods Building
Liverpool’s creative and filming sectors have boomed in recent years. This is the most filmed city outside of London, with prestige projects like The Batman, Captain America and The Crown filmed here in recent times.
In a bid to capitalise on this success, there are grand plans to convert the iconic but seriously dilapidated Littlewoods building in Edge Lane into a major £70m TV and film studio, which leaders are branding as “The Hollywood of the North.”
The process of converting the site, the former home of the Littlewoods Football Pools, began in 2023, a process made more difficult following a major fire that ravaged the building back in 2018.
The idea is to create two new 20,000 sq ft studio stages on the land and that the existing building will be brought back to life and used alongside the new studios, as well as existing facilities as The Depot, which opened nearby in 2021.
Remediation work at the Littlewoods building (Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
While there is plenty of excitement about the project, there were concerns raised in 2025 when the developer behind the plans, Capital&Centric said there was a “viability challenge” as the cost of delivering the project is now exceeding the value of the completed development.
Co-founder Tim Heatley said that to address this, his company had entered into discussions with government.
In his own comments to the ECHO, published over the Christmas period, Liverpool Council leader Liam Robinson said talks are now going on at the highest levels of government to get ministers on board with the project.
He said: “We’re working on some of the detailed plans around it and we’ve been invited to Downing Street in February to present to the government.”
Wirral Waters
When it comes to regeneration in the Wirral, it is hard to look past the huge Wirral Waters development, which remains ongoing.
The huge Peel scheme has already seen 500 new apartments built at Miller’s Quay and the first phase of 30 new homes created at Redbridge Quay.
Millers Quay,Wirral Waters Development(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
Eventually Peel Waters plans to build 850 homes on the north side of the Wirral docks including plans for an extra care village. The first 150 apartments at Miller’s Quay are now at 80% occupancy just ten weeks after being finished.
The Miller’s Quay development reached full occupancy in December, marking a major milestone in the huge redevelopment of the Wirral waterfront, with more to come in 2025.
Central Docks and Central Park
Sticking with Peel, but over the water from Wirral, there is enormous ongoing work to develop a new community and park at Liverpool’s 26-acre Central Docks.
This is the largest of five neighbourhoods within the wider Liverpool Waters Scheme. Work got underway in October on the project, which aims to provide more than 2,000 new homes and a major new public park.
Visualisation of Central Park at Liverpool Waters(Image: Peel Waters)
The five-acre new Central Park will become one of the inner city’s largest green spaces when completed, with hundreds of new trees, new play areas and sports and recreation facilities – along with new walking and cycling routes.
The Central Docks plans have received a major boost from government, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves using her first speech in government to announce a £55m public investment in the scheme. With ground now broken on the project and hopes that the park and infrastructure will be completed in 2028, expect real progress in 2026.
Bootle Strand
Bootle is a part of Merseyside set to experience transformational change in 2026.
Over the past year, ground has been broken and significant progress made on Sefton Council’s transformational plan to transform the iconic Bootle Strand shopping centre as part of the wider regeneration of the area.
The council took ownership of the shopping centre in 2019 and large areas were demolished over the past year. In October the council confirmed the completion of demolition works along the Palatine, marking a crucial step forward in phase one of the multi-million-pound redevelopment programme.
Demolition works underway at Bootle Strand(Image: LDRS)
The council says the wider aim is to reshape Bootle town centre into a more “accessible, inclusive and dynamic destination for residents, businesses and visitors.”
With the demolition works, site clearance and structural preparation continuing up until the end of 2025, this next year could be a big one for seeing the huge transformation of Bootle really start to take shape.
Festival Gardens
Exciting plans for the regeneration of Liverpool’s famous Festival Gardens site arrived in 2025, with a joint venture between Urban Splash and Igloo Regeneration chosen by Liverpool City Council to redevelop the former tip site that was transformed into the home of the Liverpool International Garden Festival in 1984.
The new plans put forward from the two companies include 34 different styles of housing at the riverside location. Described as a “festival of housing”, it is expected that a planning application will be submitted later in 2026 for the creation of 440 homes – including 80 extra care and 110 affordable homes.
If approved, building would begin in Spring 2027, with phase two and three to follow providing up to 800 homes in total.
The project will aim to celebrate both the legacy of the 1984 International Garden Festival and build on the huge remediation of the 27-acre development zone.
Central Liverpool
Saving perhaps the biggest and most transformational plan until last, the ECHO revealed in 2025 that huge plans are being put together that could completely reshape and revamp a vast section of Liverpool city centre.
In December, Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram gave details of the huge £5 billion vision to regenerate the area between Liverpool Central Station and Lime Street – including the potential for a new underground tunnel to connect the two transport hubs.
The enormous plans, covering an area of 86-acres in the city centre, are clearly a way off and not likely to bring much tangible progress in 2026, but we will get closer to knowing how the vision could realistically come together.
New images show what a rebuilt and revamped Liverpool Central Station could look like(Image: Liverpool City Region Combined Authority)
Speaking to the ECHO, Mayor Rotheram said: “It is a bit like Kings Cross and St Pancras in London, where they redesigned the whole area, that is what we want to do with the centre of Liverpool, we want to redesign it.”
“We would connect Lime Street and Central better than it currently is. That would probably mean subterranean, like with those London stations, so people could move easily from one to another.
“It is about retail, about more people living in the city centre, it is about an overview, a spatial development of the whole area. What can we do to zone it? This is about a genuine, holistic plan. This would be as transformational as Liverpool One.”