AS GREEN shoots go, today’s revelation by the Liverpool Daily Post of an ambitious £130m plan to build the tallest British skyscraper outside London in our city centre is not insignificant.

In the heady days leading up to 2008, when we were looking forward to our European Capital of Culture year and sub-prime mortgages were just a blip on the horizon, hardly a week seemed to pass without some grand new scheme being launched for Liverpool’s dynamic skyline.

Not all of them would come to fruition, but the evidence was there for all to see that the days when such projects could be dismissed as mere pie in the sky were but a bitter memory of darker days.

The near-collapse of the World banking system and the recession that engulfed the planet in the wake of the crisis saw all that drive and enthusiasm come to a grinding halt. It was not only the cynics and the lunatic fringe of the heritage lobby who wondered if such days were gone for good.

So seeing a scheme like this new King Edward Tower put forward is a very positive pointer to the fact that Liverpool’s stalled regeneration may be starting to move forward once again.

Given the planning problems the previous design for this site ran into, the challenge of funding the project and the worrying potential for a “double dip” economic downturn, there are a number of obstacles for this particular scheme to overcome before it becomes reality.

But the developers assure us that the funding is in place for work on the first phase to begin in 2011. If that comes to pass, we really can start to believe that the worst is behind us.