Case Study

The former Liverpool International Garden Festival site was once the largest urban reclamation programme ever witnessed in the UK, when it was commissioned in the early 1980s. Until Langtree intervened, it remained the only UK garden festival site still not to be redeveloped and was sealed off from public access, blighted and vacant having been left derelict following the closure of the failed Pleasure Island Theme Park in 1996.

Langtree was presented with the opportunity to acquire the site in 2004 and having exchanged a Development Agreement with Liverpool City Council in 2005, we spent the next 18 months designing a scheme that respected the Agreement whilst at the same time engaging considerable and diverse views about elements that this scheme should contain.

After 18 months a planning application was submitted to redevelop the site that is recognised as one of the most under-utilised assets in Merseyside. At every stage Langtree worked closely with Liverpool City Council to evolve plans for the iconic regional waterfront park, building on the fabric of the former International Garden Festival site by restoring the Chinese and Japanese Gardens.

During 2011 the first phase of the project was completed and the site returned an emblematic regional waterfront park to the people of Liverpool. In delivering the gardens Langtree has facilitated the first major step in this transformation. The next phase on 25 acres of the former Festival Dome area will deliver a new residential community that sits within the new park, with over 1,300 high quality homes and associated ancillary shopping and community facilities.

In Spring 2013, site clearance and ground investigation works commenced in advance of remediation works to the former landfill site including renewal of a gas management system to facilitate subsequent development.