Plans to demolish the former Toxteth Community College and replace it with a six-storey residential building have been recommended for approval by Liverpool’s planning committee.

The £15 million proposal by Elliot Group includes a 109-room residential complex across the upper five floors and a commercial-use ground floor for training and education by the city’s Blackburne House.

Recommended for approval at next Tuesday’s [9 February] planning committee meeting, the plans for the Falkner Street site will include a rear landscaped area, seven car parking spaces and 40 bicycle sheds. Due to the building being unlisted, demolition of the structure is not an issue for the application.

A report to be discussed by the planning committee says: “The head of planning is satisfied that the existing former Toxteth Community College building has no architectural or historic value and its demolition will have no adverse impact on the character or appearance of the Canning Street Conservation Area.

“The proposed residential use of the site is acceptable in this location and will not result in an undue loss of amenity for neighbouring occupiers.”

The committee found the new building design, by Falconer Chester Hall, to be “of an appropriate scale, form and massing” that will create “visual interest and animate adjacent streets, without being overpowering or overstated”.

The preservation of the character and setting of the Canning Street Conservation Areas and its respective listed buildings was paramount to the application with the committee believing the proposed building will bring “an under-used and unattractive site back into beneficial use and the proposal will generate wider public benefits that outweigh local heritage concerns”.

If the development is approved, work is due to start in the spring.

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