Liverpool council will be going out to the market later this year for a development partner to regenerate the derelict Garden Festival site, a senior official has told a recent Built Environment Networking event.

Mark Kitts, the local authority’s assistant director for development housing and planning, said at BEN’s Liverpool Development Plans event, held in the city earlier this month, that the authority was aiming to revamp all 90-acres of the site. “Previous incumbents had looked at 30-acre scheme but we want to look at the entire 90 acres,” he said.

The site hosted the 1984 Liverpool International Garden Festival, which was ordered by former environment secretary Michael Heseltine to help the city get back on its feet after the Toxteth riots three years previously. However, the land has lain largely derelict since the festival closed.

Kitts said that around a third of the site each could be identified for housing and a ‘water based destination’ with the remainder left as green open space. However, he said that the site required about £10m worth of remediation, which was due to kick off next summer.

Elsewhere in the city, Kitts aid that the council was in talks with a major international hotel brand about developing in Anfield as part of the wider £260m regeneration of the area surrounding Liverpool Football Club’s stadium. He said that a planning application was expected in the next six months for a housing led regeneration scheme, which will also include a new high street and district centre in Anfield. He expected that the scheme, which includes the refurbishment of 600 homes, should be on site by next summer.

And he said that at Paddington Village, a 12-ha area next to the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, the Royal College of Physicians is currently in pre-application discussions with the council on plans for a 13-storey tower. The £35m scheme, which was described as a “huge coup for the city centre’, was expected to be on site in 2020.

The village also boasts plans for a new railway station, offices, hotel, retail, conference facilities and 2.7 acres of public realm.

Tim Heatley, co-founder of developer Capital & Centric, said that the company was hopefully starting construction next year on its conversion of the former head office of retailer Littlewoods into a film and TV studio. He said that the demand for additional studio space was fuelled by ‘massive growth’ in demand for video content for social media and that the new studio would help Liverpool to prevent its creative talent migrating to London and other parts of the UK. “It upsets me because we want to keep that talent and spend here in the north west.”

Kitts said that the new studios were of ‘paramount importance’ for Liverpool because it would help stem the outflow of an estimated £20m from the city due to its lack of film and video post-production facilities.

Alex Taylor, Unite Students’ associate acquisitions and development director, told the event that the company was on track to deliver its latest development in Liverpool city centre in 2019. The scheme, which is directly opposite Lime Street Station, boasts 1085 ensuite cluster bedrooms. Combined with the university housing specialist’s neighbouring Grand Central scheme, the Skelhorn St development would create a 2,500 bedroom student village at the northern gateway to Liverpool city centre.

Christopher Boles, senior development project manager at the Vinco Group, said that the Liverpool-based residential developer’s Tannery, a three block private rented sector development featuring 381 apartments, will be completed by 2020.