An application has been made to bring two historic University of Liverpool buildings back to life.
After laying dormant for a number of years, the university has submitted plans to Liverpool Council to repurpose two of its earliest surviving purpose-built teaching sites back into use. According to planning documents, the University of Liverpool is seeking to fully refurbish the Derby and Hartley Buildings on Brownlow Street to rehouse its School of Environmental Sciences.
The revamp is part of the university’s £1bn masterplan vision for its facilities across the next 15 years. The plans would include the construction of extensions to the existing buildings for plant and access facilities and development of a campus car park with 64 new spaces to be provided across two levels.
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The 8,000 sqm site is situated on the north-western edge of the University of Liverpool campus and leaders are keen to bring the buildings back into use as it begins the new phases of its School of Environmental Sciences. This would involve relocating research, teaching and academic offices from the Roxby Building on Myrtle Street.
The University of Liverpool has control of the freehold of the site and hopes the “revitalised” locations will have a dramatic impact on Brownlow Street and the area around the Grade II Waterhouse Infirmary. A planning statement, compiled by engineering company Stantec on behalf of the university, said Liverpool Council identify the Derby and Hartley buildings as a “non-designated heritage asset” and the proposals would “sensitively regenerate an underused site and will create a high-quality facility in one of the most sustainable locations in the city.”
Car parking has been removed as part of the university’s redevelopment of the Yoko Ono Lennon Centre, representing a loss of 147 spaces. Further car parking is proposed to be removed as part of the planned redevelopment of the School of Architecture which is currently awaiting approval.
Neither building is listed and no part of the site sits within a conservation zone. Buildings to the rear have already been demolished and the proposed development seeks to make appropriate use of this land by providing new car parking within a “sensitively landscaped setting that takes full account of the site’s setting as a key entry point into the campus as a whole.”
A date has not been set for the application to be heard by the local authority planning committee.
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