THE final piece in the jigsaw to unlock the redevelopment of a key area of Liverpool city centre has been approved.

Liverpool Council’s planning committee yesterday gave permission to developers Merepark for a final element in the £160m Central Village project.

The scheme will see land above the current Central Station, where the Victorian rail terminus once stood, turned into a new leisure destination, complete with two new residential tower blocks.

It will also feature a new cinema, shops, restaurants, hotels and offices.

The project involves re-developing the Lewis’s building, the Watson building next door and empty land between Renshaw Street and Bold Street.

The present hidden nature of the site means the vast empty space is barely perceived, despite its proximity to the neighbouring shopping streets.

The news follows the revelations on Monday that Lewis’s is to close before June to make way for the revamp.

Lewis’s owner David Thompson said he could not guarantee the store would reopen once the building work was finished in around two years’ time.

The planning permission gained yesterday amended a previous consent covering two tower blocks, 20 and 25 storeys tall.

The lower eight floors are linked with a “podium”, which will now have a lower number of residential units, in favour of more leisure uses.

There will now be 214 apartments, instead of almost 320.

The podium will feature a cinema, with the operator to be announced in the next couple of weeks.

The plans approved also now mean that Merepark has permission to redevelop the top of the Central Station concourse.

It will see a glass roof added on top of the centre of the station, and a series of escalators and floors linking the station with a plaza.

The plaza will act as a crucial link between the Lewis’s building and the boardwalk part of the development.

The boardwalk, which already has permission, will have a number of shops and restaurants fronting out onto an extended water feature, which it is hoped will become a key leisure destination.