“It’s been 10 years or more in the making"
Walton Breck Road in Anfield, an area which is proving popular for first time buyers and investors according to experts
Walton Breck Road in Anfield, an area which is proving popular for first time buyers and investors according to experts(Image: Liverpool Echo)
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A multi-million pound upgrade of the main route through Anfield and surrounding streets is taking a major step forward. A massive regeneration scheme of the wider area, home to Liverpool FC’s famous stadium, has been bubbling under for the best part of a decade.
In October last year, Liverpool Council’s cabinet signed off on its search for a design on upgrades for the area around Walton Breck Road. Now when members meet next week, they are poised to sign off on progress that could mean work begins from April.
The scheme will lead to an upgrading of highways and public realm across Walton Breck Road and key sites including Hodder Street and the former Four Oaks school site – the latter areas being earmarked for residential development. It is expected the work will cost around £4m.
The £300m Anfield regeneration programme first got underway back in 2014 and has expanded to include areas around Stanley Park, Walton Breck Road, the Liverpool FC stadium concourse and adjacent locations. The city council is seeking to make Anfield “a model for urban regeneration” and significant transformation, which was marked by the clearance of dilapidated Victorian terraces 20 years ago.
Highway improvements will include wider and renewed footways, new safe road crossings, reduced vehicle speed limits from 30mph to 20mph, the provision of bus shelters and additional seating, and the provision of tactile paving benefiting those with visual impairments.
Walton Breck Road, Anfield and Liverpool FC.
Walton Breck Road, Anfield and Liverpool FC. (Image: Colin Lane)
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A cabinet report said Walton Breck Road serves as a strategic route within the Anfield area, and its enhancement is considered key to achieving the programme’s objectives of comprehensive and sustainable regeneration, improved connectivity, and transformational social, economic, and environmental change. A contract worth £3.9m will be awarded to a preferred bidder should the cabinet agree next week.
This would enable work to begin in around six weeks’ time. Speaking as the process to seek designs got underway last Autumn, Cllr Billy Marrat, who represents Anfield, said the project can’t just focus on the district’s world famous football team.
He said: “It’s been 10 years or more in the making, we’ve had false dawns, broken promises, setbacks, you name it.” The ward member added how the issue with Walton Breck Road has been “long standing” and residents had lived in an area with “no shops, no nothing.”
He added: “There’s a lot of space available to get the right shops in for the residents and I hope they have a voice. They’re very happy that this is coming to fruition but as I always say, nobody in Anfield will believe it until a spade goes in the ground.”
Cllr Marrat said it remained his and the community’s dream to see a community centre installed on the patch of land known as Anfield Square. He said: “They’ve put up with a lot these residents, with Liverpool FC and the pop concerts going on, they’ve gone along with it, they mightn’t have liked it but they’ve gone along with it, and I think they deserve this to come to fruition.”
According to the cabinet papers, highway construction contracts of this nature are subject to potential cost increases due to the complexity of the works and the possibility of unforeseen circumstances which arise. It added: “These risks have been considered during the development of the design and have informed the determination of a suitable contingency allowance held within the overall approved budget position.”
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