Oakfield Terrace Update
Since progress on our Oakfield Terrace scheme stalled in April we have been regrouping with you, our members and supporters, as well as trusted partners and experts in the sector.
From the beginning, our neighbours made it clear that they needed warm and affordable homes. Homes that would provide not just for us now, but for future generations, too. They also wanted safe spaces to come together as a community, and a rejuvenated high street with opportunities for good jobs and local businesses to thrive. Our Oakfield Terrace scheme aims to provide all of those things.
As a member-led organisation, our members guide our decision making and direction. Since recent events, including the withdrawal of our development partner Your Housing Group, we need to come together to make sure we can deliver a scheme that meets the needs and aspirations of our community whilst being financially viable and value for money.
On 14th August, we held an open meeting for members and neighbours to come together, have a full update on our progress, ask questions and find solutions together. Over 40 of you joined us and, despite the understandable frustrations of the issues we’ve faced, there was a really positive and unifying atmosphere. We really appreciate all the questions, comments and feedback we received, and it was encouraging to see so many conversations continuing as the evening went on. We also greatly appreciate the many messages of solidarity and offers of support we’ve received in recent weeks. If you weren’t able to join us, we’ve listed some FAQs at the end of this post and you can always get in touch if you have others.
The timeline diagram below details the progress we have made and challenges we have faced to date. Ultimately, due to the interconnectedness of key pots of funding and partner requirements, a critical deadline was missed, resulting in the project being stalled and the withdrawal of our development partner.
So what happens next?
Having taken onboard comments and suggestions from our members and neighbours, we are now pursuing three key actions as next steps to delivering Oakfield Terrace.
Regrouping with trusted partners, including peers and specialists from the sector, for guidance as we explore viable options moving forward. As always members will contribute to the development of options. We remain committed to delivering a quality scheme that we all deserve.
Preparing for a collective meeting with the relevant individuals and departments of Liverpool City Council as a necessary key partner and the freeholder of the terrace. As the current owner, LCC ultimately has control over how the terrace is transferred into community ownership. While they remain the freeholder, there are significant limitations on what can be achieved. We remain committed to a strong and positive working relationship with LCC to ensure we can collectively deliver Oakfield Terrace for the community as quickly as possible.
Securing a new development partner. We have already had a number of positive meetings with one potential partner, and are building relationships with a number of others locally. Until new government funding programmes are announced (which we expect to have more information about in the Autumn statement), no commitments can be made. However we are hopeful that we will have secured a new development partner and be working with them effectively by the end of the year. In order to do this well, we will be creating robust partnership agreements to ensure clarity of roles and expectations: not just what we are doing together but how we will be doing it, to ensure the CLT has full visibility and more control over progress.
Get Involved
We need you, our community, neighbours and supporters, now more than ever. We need to come together and stand shoulder to shoulder to deliver the quality that our community asked for and deserves.
Keep talking to us! Come along to our Open House sessions in Oakfield Terrace to ask questions, make suggestions and think about how we can move forward together.
30 Aug 11am - 1pm
5 Sept 5pm - 7pm
11 Sept 10am - 12pm
@ 189 Oakfield Road, L4 0UF
Share your skills! Our team and board have many valuable skills and we are building robustness with the support of trusted partners. If you have skills or experience that you think would help us, please let us know.
Join the core design team! We are reconvening our previous core design team (the group of local people who steered the current design for the scheme). If you would be interested in getting involved with the next stage of this process, email Tom.
Despite all the challenges and setbacks we have faced, we’re not giving up! We all make up the CLT and together we can achieve true community ownership in our neighbourhood.
FAQs:
How does the CLT split its work (between Oakfield Terrace and the other programmes and activities you provide in the community)? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on delivering the terrace first and putting all funding and resources into that?
From the beginning, our work and ambition has never been just about bricks and mortar. Our wider programme is clearly linked to our full objectives as an organisation: warm and affordable homes, places and spaces to gather and jobs and training for local people. Our volunteer board and paid coordinator predominantly work on the development of Oakfield Terrace, while our other wider paid and volunteer team focus on delivering our wider programme, whilst offering support to progress Oakfield Terrace. Money we secure for our wider programme activities has ‘restrictions’ around how we can use it. Essentially; even if we wanted to spend it on the terrace we couldn’t! On the other hand, the success and impact of our wider programme is something we are really proud of and it actually helps our efforts securing investment for Oakfield Terrace as it demonstrates our values, commitment and skills.
Can’t we just do them up one by one? Do we need to be always waiting and depending on other people?
A ‘phased’ approach is one of the options we hope to explore as a potential way forward. The current plans require the scheme to be delivered as a full scheme due to the ‘jigsaw’ of homes and community spaces and the structural work that comes along with that. Our ‘development partner’ model, while challenging to coordinate and get all partners to pullin the same direction at the required times, also comes with a lot of benefits (hence why our members chose it). However on reflection, we recognise that the balance of power and control could and should sit more with the community so we will ensure that balance in our future partnerships. Regardless of what approach is decided moving forward, we remain dependent on Liverpool City Council as the freeholder to enable the transfer of the terrace into community ownership.
Why didn’t the CLT team have a better overview of progress between partners, and therefore more clarity on potential issues and the ability to make changes within the necessary timeframes?
Working in a ‘development partnership’ model like ours will always require trust and confidence between partners, each with responsibility for different areas. While we did have regular meetings and reporting mechanisms with key partners and managed to navigate many complex challenges together, there were also some discussions in which we were not directly involved. These were predominantly regarding funding accessed by Your Housing Group on behalf of the CLT and the initial legal agreements between Liverpool City Council and Your Housing Group. These were two of the most significant areas where issues lead to delays.
We recognise that we handed over too much trust and control without a formal partnership agreement being signed by all parties. This is a big lesson learned, and moving forward we will be creating robust partnership agreements to ensure clarity of roles and expectations: not just what we are doing together but how we will be doing it, to ensure the CLT has full visibility and more control over progress.
Why has it taken so long?
Between 2018 (when the CLT secured a development lease with LCC) and 2020 we made significant progress that we are proud of. We designed the scheme through a participatory and community-led process, chose partners through competitive tender and secured planning permission. The majority of development projects nationally were thrown into chaos in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and then also locally following the crisis at Liverpool City Council (and we’re still experiencing the ripple effects). In Autumn 2023 all partners were finally in a position to set a date to start on site: Spring 2024. Even though we experienced further challenges, everything was moving in the right direction and we had everything ready on our side. Despite not being able to meet the start on site date due to delays with our partners, the work we have put in hasn’t been lost and still puts us in a strong position to move forward.