Skyscraper developer faces £600,000 bill for ‘fresh air’

Jul 3 2008 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

beetham tower 320

A CITY developer is to be forced to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for little more than “fresh air”, the Daily Post can reveal.

The move comes five years after the Beetham Organisation controversially bought land in Brook Street, off The Strand, for just £163,000 from Liverpool City Council.

The company originally told the council it planned to either land-scape the area, which was in front of its original Beetham Tower skyscraper, or add a small office development.

But it later proceeded to build a second 40-storey West Tower including 116 luxury apartments.

It led to an outcry over whether the council had got the best price for the plot. Since the completion of the tower in 2007, Beetham has been unable to sell 60 luxury apartments on the river side of the building because they overhang a piece of public highway, just 36sq m, owned by the council, as the Land Registry has refused to register proposed sales.

Negotiations between the council and Beetham are at a late stage, and it is understood the developer will be forced to pay at least £600,000 for the tiny plot and the airspace which the flats occupy.

Tomorrow, Liverpool’s executive board is set to approve the sale of the land to Mapfield Properties Ltd, a subsidiary of Beetham, but the price has been withheld from public documents.

Last night, Labour city centre council-lor Nick Small, who raised concerns about the original sale, said the price needed disclosing for there to be confi-dence the council was getting best value.

“I am pleased the council is getting more money from this, but it is by accident rather than by design because of a quirk that the Land Registry would not register sales,” he added.