There’s a great deal of excitement in a district of Liverpool’s northern dockland
It seems to all be happening up in the Ten Streets area of north Liverpool, as an increasing number of businesses and residents continue to flood the district with creativity and growth. And that’s not to mention Everton’s giant new Bramley Moore Stadium, which promises to bring more people to the up-and-coming area.
15 years ago, Ten Streets was largely industrial and derelict, with once great structures left to decay as fossils of the once imperial importance of Liverpool’s dockland. But then, in 2014, the Titanic Hotel opened, and then came the Invisible Wind Factory two years later – a creative space known for hosting concerts, workshops, and special events.
More creative businesses began to move into the area, and, in 2017, an ambitious Ten Streets vision was launched by Liverpool City Council, with the aim of turning the location into a ‘Cultural Enterprise Identity Hub’. The 10 streets, from Oil Street to Saltney Street, are all parallel, running between Great Howard Street and Regent Road.
Skip to the present day, and there’s a feeling of excitement in Ten Streets and the surrounding area, with more and more people and companies making it their home. Councillor Nick Small, Liverpool City Council‘s Cabinet Member for Growth and Economy, says that the vision is for the district to emulate the Baltic Triangle’s success in becoming a hub for the creative and digital sector while ‘preserving the area’s integrity and character’.
He told the ECHO: “The creative sector is one of the key growth sectors for Liverpool, alongside things like life sciences and other parts of the knowledge economy. Its importance probably goes beyond that, because cities with strong creative and digital sectors become hubs for innovators, which is something we want in Liverpool to drive the city forward.
“We’re putting a supplementary planning document together that is looking at development in Ten Streets, but we want to be a little hands-off because it’s about the creatives doing the creating, and our role as a council is to facilitate that.”
When asked how a balance can be struck between regeneration and gentrification, particularly when it comes to retaining authenticity and affordability, Cllr Small said: “It’s always a difficult one; lots of places that attract creative industries attract them because the rents are cheaper. Often, areas that start as creative hubs, because the rents are cheap become a victim of their own success.
“What we need to do is create a really strong branding and a really strong offer so that doesn’t happen. It’s about getting the mix right, so having other types of development in there – hotels, bars, restaurants and residential, while being mindful of having that creative anchor in there as well.”
Speaking about the new Bramley Moore stadium, which is opening later this year, Cllr Small said that it will change many people’s view of Ten Streets as an area to visit. He added: “I think Bramley Moore is a transformational project, and what we’re going to see is more people coming into the area.
“Ten Streets is largely a part of the city that is outside of people’s mental map of Liverpool, and it’s not really an area that people are used to going to. That will change with the stadium and the Ten Streets development.
“We’ve got to bring all of this together so that more people are experiencing the area, and so there’s something there for everybody – which we’ve started to see over the past few years anyway.
“Ten Streets will evolve. I think it’s going to be a creative and digital hub with more businesses and more residents, but also with more people visiting it. When you look at what’s happened in the Baltic, most people didn’t know about it, but now we’re getting a station there, and it’s really going from strength to strength.
“Ten Streets needs to do that – but with its own character. It’s going to be about preserving the area’s integrity. We need to make sure it has its own distinctive feeling.”
One of the businesses that has moved into the Ten Streets area more recently is Crosby Coffee, which opened up its flagship roastery on Glegg Street in 2024. Last week, the company announced plans to open up a fourth café in the same venue, giving guests an opportunity to ‘connect with the process’ of how their coffee is made while they sip on it.
Co-founder Jack Foster says he and his business partner Mark Slinger ‘fell in love’ with their new headquarters. He told the ECHO: “The beginning of 2024 is when we moved in – just as a roastery, but our intentions were, within a year, to open it up as a coffee shop as well.
“We were looking for a particular type of building initially. The building we’ve moved into is a former cotton mill – three storeys and big enough for us to have a bit of space. It’s a bit cool, it’s a bit edgy, and the building has loads of character.
“We knew a bit about the Ten Streets area already and Bramley Moore opening up. We looked at it, and it was an up-and-coming area with loads going on, but not too many people knew about it.”
Speaking about the business community in Ten Streets, he added: “I probably underestimated the sense of community that’s already in the area. But when we moved there, we started to meet some of the neighbours and businesses.
“The whole parking restriction debacle that went on recently made me realise that even more; there were about 300 businesses in a WhatsApp group, all discussing the area, what’s going on, and how we could help each other.”
Jack is referring to the controversial parking restriction measures introduced by Liverpool City Council in February, which formed a large zone spreading out from the new Everton stadium where people would not be able to park. Large numbers of businesses based in the area immediately raised major concerns with the scheme, particularly around the fact that the restrictions would be in place every day and not just when Everton home matches or other events were taking place at the ground.
Businesses warned the new rules could see them go under if not changed. In March, the council suspended the restrictions.
Despite the ‘parking restriction debacle,’ Jack is excited about the new stadium and the result it will have on the area. He continued: “It’s only going to do wonders for the area and bring more people to see what businesses are here. When we moved in, we didn’t really realise how many things were here already – we thought we’d moved into an area that still needed work, but there’s quite a lot of stuff here already.”
On the area’s redevelopment, Jack said: “It’s going in the right direction, but I would still say there is a lot to do. With the stadium opening this year, I would probably have expected to have seen more development. But the pace of things that have been announced is still relatively quick.
“The more businesses that open, and the more people who come down and see what businesses are in the area, the more exciting it’s going to get. I drove down Love Lane this morning, and even the arches, which all appear derelict, were all getting cleared out. Even those little things are exciting when you think about how they’re not only going to look nicer but also have businesses moving into those spaces.”
