Festival Gardens Developers Sign Contracts With Liverpool
Urban Splash and igloo have signed up to deliver the Festival Gardens scheme in Liverpool. The legal agreements needed to move the project forward have now been agreed with Liverpool City Council, and the developers hope to lodge a planning application for the 800-home development by the end of 2027.
The council picked the two firms for the 27-acre site in August 2025. Their joint venture beat Muse, Vistry and CERT Property. The site lies three miles south of the city centre.
Homes planned
The current plan is for around 800 homes, with 440 of them in the first phase. At one point the site was appraised as able to hold up to 1,500 homes.
Urban Splash and igloo intend to build more than 30 house types in a range of tenures. Co-housing, social rent, mixed tenure family homes, retirement living and self-build are all planned. Six architects are working on the design.
The joint venture will build homes itself and also work with a group of other developers. Alpha Living, Regenda Homes, TOWN and Starship are named among them.
The site's past
The council bought the land for £6m in 2015. A £53m clean-up followed, paid for by the council, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and Homes England, with VINCI carrying out the work. That programme also produced the Southern Grasslands public park, which sits next to the development site.
The ground once formed part of the International Garden Festival, launched by Queen Elizabeth II in 1984. The council says the new neighbourhood "draws on the legacy" of that festival.
Cllr Nick Small, the council's Cabinet Member for Economy and Growth, called Festival Gardens "one of Liverpool's most iconic regeneration opportunities". He said the agreement lets the council move ahead with plans for "hundreds of much-needed new homes".
Joe Broadley, development director at igloo, said the partners now look forward to working with the community and with Urban Splash over the coming months and years. Jonathan Falkingham, co-founder of Urban Splash, said the project would bring a new neighbourhood and local jobs to the long-standing site.
Source: Place North West