With us already several weeks into a new year, it’s a great time to reflect and look back at 2022.
In this blog, the Fabric District CIC’s board member for regeneration, Chris Clayton, shares his highlights for 2022.
With many years’ experience in urban regeneration and renewal, these are Chris’ reflections on the progress that happened in the area, and more widely in Liverpool, last year.
The Fabric District: a central district in the lower division in terms of its economic & social challenges and its appearance; yet with the absolute potential to rise to the premier league.
The huge investment in recent years at “the top of the hill” has made Pembroke Place look a bit like Euston Road in London with its shiny new buildings at Liverpool University and the new Royal Liverpool Hospital.
The City Council’s support and financial contribution to the Knowledge Quarter, notably at its Paddington Village development, has allowed Liverpool to maintain its rightful place at the very top in the field of medical sciences and research.
Yet directly between ‘the top of the hill’ and the bottom (Lime Street Station, St George’s Hall and the museums & galleries) lies the Fabric District – the district that connects the cultural heart of the city to the University campuses and the centre of knowledge.
And just across Islington, that urban ‘motorway’ which isolates Everton from the city centre, is a community which faces ongoing challenges whilst hoping that the Fabric District can provide improved local services, job opportunities and a better future.
I firmly believe that the Fabric District is going to play an increasingly important role in supporting not only its own business and residential communities but also those very major institutions already mentioned.
Our numerous small businesses in the Fabric District, many in the tech and creative sectors, are the life-support for our illustrious neighbours.
Every large organisation needs the support of its local community, to help them every day and every week of the year. Organisations, large and small, creating local jobs and wealth with the knock-on betterment of the district.
2022 has been an amazingly hard year but green shoots have appeared in the Fabric District and its immediate vicinity. Here are just a few:
- The new Royal Liverpool Hospital has opened at last. Major new projects are planned for the old hospital site and at Paddington Village
- The North-Western Hotel at Lime Street station has been lovingly restored and just opened as a Radisson Red hotel
- The former TJ Hughes satellite store is being developed for the Home Group as affordable rented housing with community space and a retail frontage on Monument Place
- The stalled student housing towers on Norton Street have been bought out of administration and the builders are busy on site again
The current economic climate isn’t perhaps the best time for development and investment, but I know of several reputable developers looking to invest in the Fabric District, in residential and commercial schemes providing places for local people to live and work.
Local companies have also been looking to relocate into the Fabric Village, Parr Street Studios being a good example.
The Fabric District CIC’s board has been working hard to raise the profile of the area with local and central government. A CIC-led masterplan will soon be published, and the city council is beginning to realise that a healthy Fabric District (social, physical, economic) will have benefits far and wide.
Our commercial and residential community needs the Fabric District to prosper and, as far as I can see, the major institutions at ‘the top of the hill’ feel the same. The sooner the better!
