New details about plans to build 1,500 homes on the old Festival Gardens site in Liverpool have been revealed that include a potential finish date for the ambitious scheme.
At the Regen 2019 conference at St George's Hall last week, Ion's managing director Steve Parry held a presentation on the scheme in front of delegates, that also included the potential makeup of the development and just how difficult it could prove to remove the existing on-site tip.
The Otterspool gardens housed the International Garden Festival in 1984, and were bought by the for £6m in 2015, with the cash boost coming from Homes England.
In February, it was announced that a was to bring the former garden festival site on the waterfront "back to life", with plans for around 1,500 homes.
Delivering a speech last week entitled 'Festival Gardens: From tip to green neighbourhood', Mr Parry raised points from what could be on the site to how an intriguing item was found during recent investigation works.
Here's what he said:
1. It's hoped there will be a new primary school built at the new development
Mr Parry said the developers were "very keen" for the potential of a primary school at Festival Gardens, which could even mean a forest school - a specialised facility heavily including outdoor and woodland education.
He said discussions were taking place with the local council and central government over the possibility.
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Drone footage showing the epic scale of the Festival Gardens site:
2. Car parking was the biggest challenge
Mr Parry said there were deliberations over how much car parking there should be, and that the firm now hopes to incorporate undercroft parking into the development - cars parked in concrete boxes located underneath the homes.
3. What lies beneath
He also said when the site acted as a domestic tip before Festival Gardens was built, around 350,000sq m of cubic waste was dumped there, which was then layered over with clay.
He said it was an "unusual" case, because the waste has actually been "quite preserved".
He added: "You would think it degrades into mush, but most of it is as is."
4. The tip contained a time-capsuled copy of the Liverpool Echo
He continued by saying recent site investigations saw workers pull out a 1983 copy of the Liverpool Echo - and because of how the waste had not degraded, "you could read the whole thing".
5. Removing the tip will be a big job
Mr Parry said the best way to move forward is to remove the waste from the ground - but that it won't be a simple task, as it equates to "140 Olympic swimming pools" worth of waste.
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"There's no easy way apart from someone standing on conveyor belt and pulling out the different types of waste and sorting it like that.
"It's a pretty expensive operation. And we want to get rid of it in 15 months or so.
"It probably will be the biggest remediation attempt of its type ever in the 海角视频."
6. It's hoped to be the greenest neighbourhood in the city region
The "big idea" with the site is for it to be the "greenest neighbourhood in the city region".
He explained: "The footnote is to create homes in a garden. This idea goes back to the history of Liverpool and Birkenhead, in that both have very large parks [Sefton and Birkenhead Parks]. Both of those have quite interesting features, which are mansion houses.
"[The surrounding] apartment blocks or houses have virtually no gardens. The park they are set in forms their gardens. And that's the concept we are looking for with this."
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7. The scheme will be made up of mostly apartments
Of the 1,500 homes, the majority will be apartments with one to three bedrooms, with a smaller number of houses.
8. The first homes will be for the rental market
Mr Parry said the developers were searching for investors to build rental accommodation for the first phase of the 1,500-home scheme.
9. ... and there will be retail and leisure too
Local amenities will include shops, coffee shops and restaurants, Mr Parry said.
10. A new neighbourhood to attract people to move from the city centre
Mr Parry said: "Fundamental to this is housing and home supply.
"If you follow the local press in Liverpool, you'll see there's always a great demand for housing in south Liverpool. It's the place people want to live.
He said: "The idea is to appeal to move on from city centre living. You live in the city centre for a while then attraction fades a bit. You think you actually want to live in suburbs but not necessarily in a terraced house or semi-detached, so this meets that gap of the market."
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11. The time frame
Mr Parry revealed that a remediation planning application will be submitted in the "next couple of weeks", with the process starting in spring next year.
Then, the developer hopes to get outline consent in the second quarter of 2020, with building works to start in autumn 2021.
Delivering around 250 units per year, final completion of the project is due for 2028, Mr Parry said.