University of Liverpool
THE University of Liverpool will spend £45m building a new city centre halls of residence complex for its students, the Daily Post can reveal.
And last night it emerged the 700-room development is set to be among the greenest in the country.
Subject to planning approval, the “Eco Residences” project will be built on the car park site of the university’s School of Management, in Chatham Street, on the junction with Myrtle Street.
The buildings will collect rainwater for toilet flushing and be able to heat themselves through solar-powered water heating.
Home to en-suite bedrooms, a 250-seat restaurant, cafe bar and shops, its “cutting edge” features will include turf-like matted green roofs laced with heather intended to attract wildlife such as nesting birds and bats.
Last night, the project attracted criticism amid fears it will create “a ghetto” of students in the city centre.
However, university officials insist the project would not replace existing provision and was borne out of a desire to offer a “first- rate” experience and attract high-calibre students to Liverpool.
The project will be run as a “ public private partnership”, but university officials declined to expand further because “the detail is still under discussion.”
Students themselves had driven the development, the university stressed, with market research showing demand for accommodation on campus, “particularly self-catered en-suite rooms.”
If planners back the application, building work could start this November with a view to opening in September, 2011. The university admits the plan would “have an impact” on parking at the Management School due to the loss of 200 spaces but insisted a review found “the university does have adequate spaces to match demand.”
In April, the Daily Post revealed how the university was considering selling Carnatic Halls, in Mossley Hill, along with Derby and Rathbone and Roscoe and Gladstone, near Greenbank Park.
But last night the university insisted that, although it “constantly reviewed” its accommodation provision, the new development would “complement” rather than replace current lodgings.
The development, though, was branded “worrying” by deputy Labour leader and former University of Liverpool student, Cllr Paul Brant.
