Mayor outlines transformational idea to sink The Strand in order to accommodate huge King Edward Triangle development
The Strand is one of Liverpool’s busiest and most recognisable roads(Image: Liverpool ECHO)
One of Liverpool’s busiest and most notable roads could be hugely redesigned – including going underground – to help better connect the city centre with a £1bn waterfront development.
There is a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm from city and regional bosses about the ongoing plans for a £1bn skyscraper development plan on the edge of Liverpool city centre. The King Edward Triangle project could see nearly 3,000 homes and 400 hotel rooms created on land known as the King Edward Triangle on a site based on Gibraltar Row, close to The Strand – the waterfront dual-carriageway that takes thousands of drivers past the Three Graces every single day.
Last week, the ECHO revealed the evolving plans for the King Edward Triangle – which come via a partnership between Beetham and the TJ Morris group who operate the Home Bargains empire – could include a new 25,000 sq ft arena as well as the city’s first AA five-star hotel and a huge amount of commercial business space.
Liverpool City Council’s cabinet will meet this evening (Tuesday) and is expected to agree the sale of land at Great Howard Street, which involves land within the site of the proposed King Edward Triangle development to KEIE (part of the TJ Morris Group), which owns the balance of the freehold in the development site.
What will not be decided at this meeting is how the road network will be reconfigured to accommodate the huge King Edward plans and how this will be connected to the rest of the city centre.
The draft image of the vision for the King Edward Triangle skyscraper project.(Image: Liverpool Council / Beetham / KEIE Limited)
But there are grand hopes for this work.
Speaking at the launch of the Liverpool City Region 10-year growth plan at the University of Liverpool on Monday, Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram confirmed the ambition could be to sink The Strand – one of Liverpool’s most iconic roads – so that it would go underground and underneath the new King Edward development.
Explaining this idea, he told the ECHO: “What we (the combined authority) will provide is the means for the others to do some of these things. If for instance, the ambition is that we can take the Strand under and then have it appear somewhere else, that will need us the strategic authority working with the city council.
“The ambition is, that if we build the first bit of it, is then somehow how to connect it. At the moment Leeds Street and The Strand are in the way.
He added: “So wouldn’t it be brilliant if we could get over that as a hurdle and then you could connect the whole of that corridor?”
This isn’t the first time a senior figure has mooted an ambitious idea to take The Strand underground.
Speaking at an event last year, Liverpool Council’s head of planning Samantha Campbell mentioned the transformational idea, which could see The Strand brought lower to allow public realm to be built above it.
In comments reported by Place North West, Ms Campbell said that sinking The Strand was a “radical intervention” that could create a seamless connection between the city centre and the King Edward Triangle and beyond to the rest of the northern docks.
The King Edward plans are moving forward at pace. A planning application was submitted in June for a 28-storey, 255-unit building to form part of the development. The expectation is it will be ruled on this autumn.
And last month plans were submitted seeking permission to demolish a collection of unlisted buildings around the northern boundary of the eight-acre city centre site.