THE construction of 1,300 apartments on Liverpool’s former International Garden Festival site is “essential” if the site is to be regenerated, developers insisted yesterday.

Stephen Sauvain, QC, outlined developer Langtree McLean’s vision to bring the derelict Otterspool site back into use, on the first day of a public inquiry into the scheme.

Liverpool City Council out-lined support for the £250m plan.

Protesters from the Save Our Festival Gardens Campaign joined the city’s sole Green councillor, John Coyne, to give details of their objections at the start of the three-week inquiry at the Britannia Adelphi Hotel.

Planning inspector Chris Turner will hear evidence from experts and residents and will also visit the 100-acre site, off Riverside Drive.

Mr Turner will report his findings to Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears with a recommendation on whether to give the scheme planning permission.

Mr Sauvain said that the new homes – mostly eight-storey apartment blocks, along with 68 traditional houses – are needed to raise cash for the restoration of the 56-acre garden site that will become public parkland.

“The build element of the proposal is an essential and minimum requirement both to enable the construction of the park and to secure its future maintenance.”

He saidthat, if permitted, the proposals would bring back into “beneficial” public use areas adjoining the riverside, which had been “blighted by past neglect and lack of vision”.

Mr Sauvain said it would also connect the waterfront to the adjoining residential area, and “achieve significant enhance-ment of the biodiversity of the site as a whole”.

“The proposals have been designed to provide an overall increase in the variety and quality of habitat, with the objective of achieving a very significant improvement in bio-diversity on the site, and allow-ing it to maximise its consider-able ecological potential.”

Alan Evans, on behalf of the council, said: “The site is an eyesore and in urgent need of restoration. Efforts to bring the site back into productive use have had a sad history of failure over recent years.”

The council believed the plan would create an accessible park in a unique location that would be an “asset of regional significance”, providing a focal point for the waterfront and a symbol of a Liverpool which has turned the economic corner.

David Morton, spokesman for Save Our Festival Gardens Campaign, said: “A large urban development is not the only way to tackle the neglect and dereliction of the Gardens.”

Cllr Coyne said: “Although I am critical of aspects of the proposals, I have accepted the principle of a high-density urban housing scheme as an enabling development on this site.”

davidbartlett