Gareth Zeverona points to the derelict shopfronts and houses visible from the front window of his cafe in Anfield.
Having grown up in the street next door where his parents still live, he decided to open the Oakfield Coffee House on Oakfield Road in July of last year and explains how he always wanted to see the area as a “destination road”.
Mr Zeverona outlines how the cafe has been getting busier and busier in the months since it opened, however he notes there is a stark contrast on the main Anfield high street on the long weeks between LFC home games.
READ MORE: Progress of Anfield Redevelopment captured in new footage
He told the ECHO: “I've been saying since I was 18 that this should be a destination road. It should be full of restaurants.
“I've seen tourists come here all of my life. They come out of the ground and look around and have no idea where to go.
“Anfield was not getting any money pumped into it because of that. There were no local businesses. People were going straight to town.
“It's depressing. It makes you feel ever more reliant on match days. But there is enough footfall of people going past.
“People need more options. Especially in the evening. Not everyone wants to go into town. Not everyone should have to go into town.”
‘It’s as though we wouldn’t be on the map’
In December 2021, Mr Zeverona’s hopes of seeing Oakfield Road and the adjoining Walton Breck Road become a “destination” took a step forward.
At a cabinet meeting, £6m was committed towards completing a regeneration project that has been ongoing for much of the last two decades.
Signing off on the report in December, Mayor Joanne Anderson said: “The developments listed in the report will provide essential retail and community facilities improving choice and competition for consumers.
“The final residential proposals for Anfield village and comprehensive site will in turn meet identified social need for social housing and assisted living.
“Lastly the high street public realm works will improve pedestrian safety and inclusivity.”
In 2004, the Anfield area around Walton Breck Road saw significant clearance of dilapidated Victorian terraces and extensive housing renewal dating back to the then Labour government’s Housing Market Renewal Initiative (HMRI).
This and other development led to the creation of around 700 new homes and 600 refurbished homes, a new primary school, expansion of Liverpool Football Club’s stadium and revitalisation of Stanley Park, all of which was carried out by a range of partners and stakeholders.
However the coalition government took the decision to cancel the HMRI in 2011, leading the city council to establish a Strategic Regeneration Framework to complete the remaining key sites which was adopted in 2014.
A partnership between the city council, Liverpool FC, Your Housing Group and Keepmoat Homes was established to complete the project across 18 key sites.
But projects stalled due to “changes within the Council, its spending freeze and the inability to ring-fence receipts within Anfield, the covid pandemic and finally implications arising from the recent best value Inspection”, according to a report produced into the plans.
As it stands 60% of Anfield’s regeneration is complete, with 7 key sites still left to develop.
The sites include the currently derelict Anfield Square, situated on Walton Breck Road and on the doorstep of the stadium where plans for a hotel have previously fallen through.
Another is a row of shops facing onto the Kop end, with significant public realm works to be carried out on Walton Breck Road with aims of introducing a number of traffic calming measures.
However the stalled works has left parts of Anfield in a state of limbo, only awakened when 61,000 football fans pour into the area.
One woman who works in a business on Walton Breck Road but wanted to remain anonymous, suggests more needs to be done to bring vibrancy to the area all week around.
She told the ECHO: “We need more shops open around here. We just need it to seem more open. Everything seems shut.
“If it wasn’t for LFC, it’s as though we wouldn’t be on the map.”
‘We don’t want to be another high street’
A few metres away, another of the key sites is a terrace of tinned up houses on Oakfield Road, right under the shadow of Anfield stadium where work on the £60m development of the Anfield Road stand is well underway.
Outlined in the cabinet report, the terrace will be converted into a mixture of commercial and affordable residential space by Keepmoat Homes, working as development manager on behalf of Homebaked Community Land Trust - who should eventually become leaseholders of the site.
The tinned up terrace adjoins the CLT’s sister organisation, Homebaked Co-operative, which took over the former Mitchell’s bakery in 2012 and has grown to become one for the city’s most successful social enterprises.
Tom Murphy is the secretary of Homebaked CLT and outlines how significant development in the area led to residents grouping together to fight for their own positive change.
He told the ECHO: “[The CLT] was formed around the same time streets were being demolished and families were being displaced.
“This terrace including the bakery building were all earmarked for demolition, but we fought to keep hold of them.”
Mr Murphy explains how the aims of the CLT is to develop and protect assets and support local people with a particular skill or interest, enabling people to develop them into viable and sustainable community businesses.
He notes how the ending of the HMRI left the area in a “bad way”, but development since then has raised Anfield’s attractiveness for further investment - irrespective of the high levels of deprivation and poverty it still suffers from.
He added: “Anfield is now seen as an area to invest in which is great on one hand. But on the other hand, we have to make sure it's the right investment.
“Often a lot of the investment that is coming in is from outside developers which aren't community led and the community don't benefit. So when profit is made in the area, it's siphoned off to line other people's pockets.”
Mr Murphy says this has contributed to the ‘every other weekend’ nature of the area, where most shop fronts remain stuttered until game days and some pubs only open on a limited basis.
The plans outlined by the council could go someway to addressing this balance of famine and feast, but Mr Murphy is keen to point out that the window of opportunity to deliver something that is locally led is one that is narrowing.
He said: “We don't have two to three years to wait, we need to do it now. We’re fighting against a closing window of opportunity. The CLT has been ready and had planning permission since early autumn 2019.
“We don't want to be another highstreet that is dominated by matchday businesses and chains.
“We have the bakery, new commercial spaces, Liverpool Lighthouse, Kitty's Launderette. Lots of other socially minded businesses that are connected and can have an impact on the area.”
'The more people feel empowered'
Further along Oakfield Road you reach the Liverpool Lighthouse Mr Murphy mentions, a former Guamont Cinema that is now a registered charity and “creative sanctuary”.
It’s current creative director, Rebecca Ross-Williams, joined the organisation in 2021 but explains the Liverpool Lighthouse has a long history of engagement with the diverse Anfield community.
She told the ECHO: “We want the lighthouse to be that space that has a real heart in the community, for people to come, develop skills and get support.
“As soon as that happens, that can help change the area.
“The more people feel empowered and the more they have the skills to do what they want to do in terms of their area and their own progression, the more power we have to transform and change.”
Ms Ross-Williams adds that, through community consultation carried out at the Liverpool Lighthouse, there is a strong desire to see the Anfield high street more “open” and accessible during the day.
She said: “The community wants a space locally during the day for them to engage. People who might feel a little bit marginalised or new to our country.”
The Lighthouse therefore offers a range of arts workshops and family groups aimed at creating a more positive landscape in what remains in the most deprived ward across the city.
Ms Ross-Williams added: “The reason why change can be so exciting in Anfield is because there's such a strong sense of community. People will look out for each other and watch out for one another.
“In terms of the development of the area, involving the community could be really exciting.
“It's much harder in an area where it's fractured.
According to local Cllr Tricia O’Brien, the local community are eager to see something happen with the large derelict sites that still visually blight the area around Walton Breck Road.
Cllr O’Brien told the ECHO: “We want to see the whole area revitalised.
“It's really important to be leading on regeneration of neighbourhoods. Some of the major projects were originally said to have a trickle down effect. I'm not convinced that's happened.
“The city centre area gets redeveloped and gets lots of new buildings, it doesn't mean areas like Everton and Anfield have benefited from that. We do need to concentrate in the local areas on getting a better deal for the residents
“They feel that they only see the bad side of redevelopment. We'd like to change that.”
Cllr O’Brien shares the views of the local residents the ECHO spoke in aiming to see Anfield as a destination that goes beyond the action inside it’s iconic stadium.
She explains that plans will be further for the regeneration of the seven remaining sites in the next couple of months, but work will soon be carried out to clean up the derelict Anfield Square site next to the ground.
Progress
Overlooking the tinned up houses Homebaked CLT is hoping to breathe new life into are some of the most famed terraces in the world.
In many ways the rapidly expanding Anfield stadium is in contrast to the wider Anfield area that is looking to make incremental but lasting improvements - not least in the lasting dilapidated state much of the highstreet has been left in.
But some progress can already be seen in the refurbished houses in Anfield Village, situated behind the derelict Anfield Square site.
As the concrete column of the new Anfield Road stand elevator is lifted into place, there is now a sense Anfield’s residents and stakeholders are ready to do their own heavy lifting and elevate an area that is looking to overcome its hardest years.
