There’s very little of Liverpool you can’t see from the top floor of the Novotel hotel in Paddington village.
Situated at the cusp of the city centre and Kensington, the hotel offers officially the highest rooms in the city - thanks to the steep slopes it was constructed on. Everything from the Welsh Mountains can be seen on one side, the entirety of north Liverpool, the Sefton coastline and Knowsley on the other.
In closer view, just a few streets over, you can just about see a large mural painted on the side of a building featuring the words ‘Kensington Fields’. The building appears like a regular social club, but it is also home to the Kensington Fields Community Association.
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The organisation has become a glue-like presence in an area that has been increasingly fractured in recent years, in part due to House of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) proliferation in the terraces that surround it. But as the top floors of the Novotel would show, the community centre is also at the centre of enormous change.
The towering hotel is one new neighbour, as is the new Royal Liverpool Hospital and the distinctive Spine Building, opened in 2021. Plans for a new multi-million pound research centre called ‘Hemisphere’ have also just been approved, with plans for three more developments on the £1bn Paddington Village site.
The sloping Mount Vernon Road where the site now sits was once best known for lock-ins at the cherished Mount Vernon Pub, demolished in 2017. Instead the area is gradually becoming the nucleus of the Knowledge Quarter, a sprawling section of the city centre which takes in the universities, hospital and Liverpool Science Park.
In the view of Howard Lewis, general manager at Novotel Paddington Village, the area has similarities to the North Docks where Everton’s Bramley Moore stadium is being constructed. “It’s bringing the city centre out to a new area,” he says of the rapid development taking place, adding: “When you’re bringing regeneration to an area, it should benefit the community and local businesses
“We’re one of the early adopters of this area. Anything we can do to work with the local community we will do as much as we can.”
'You wouldn't know where you were'
Kensington Fields Community Centre and Social Club sits in contrast to the towering buildings that have sprung up around it. Through one of its doors, a food pantry is winding down after a busy morning.
A volunteer tells the ECHO that 40 members have come by to do their 10 items for £3.50 shop today, with 71 using the service last week. There’s currently a waiting list of around 25 people who want to become members of the pantry - which currently stands at around 150 people from the local area.
Inside the main room, a mixture of Kensington locals and social club regulars are sitting across the tables, waiting for the offering of lunch and bingo to begin. At one table is Ray Evans, 80, who has lived in the area for the last 55 years.
He says the area has gone “right down” due to the growth in HMOs and the impacts of a more transient population. This, he says, is something that has led to issues with waste disposal and generally a poor upkeep of the area.
Ray told the ECHO: “When we first moved into Kenny, we used to have shops along the main road but they've all been knocked down and we've got nothing in their place.”
Referencing the tower blocks that now loom over the Victorian terraces, Ray adds: “If you were to stand at the end of the street now, you wouldn't know where you were.
“When we go our housing will be sold and it will be turned into student accommodation. I think we'll be the last [of the local community], if you know what I mean.”
The raffle draw takes place and Ray’s table isn’t in luck on this occasion. A few tables over a group of women have their dabbers ready for when the bingo numbers start to be called.
Winnie Hudson, 82, grew up in Kirkdale and always thought of Kensington as a “posh” part of Liverpool in her youth, before moving there years later. While she embraces the change that is taking place around Paddington Village, something that makes Kensington “more cosmopolitan”, she laments how aspects of the area have become “unsightly” due to the way people dispose of waste, adding, “we just want a decent environment.”
“I think it’s sad that there are no family homes,” says Eileen Carter, a resident in the area for the last 70 years, taking a break as a winner makes their way to the stage to collect their prize. Asked if they believe that Kensington is equally a prime area for investment and regeneration, their friend Eileen Kelly responds: “If there’s investment, where is the money? We cannot see it here.”
'We want to have a say'
If the ‘eastern gateway’ of the city centre is getting taller thanks to developments around Paddington Village, then Kensington is looking toward the ground to solve some of its issues. This has come in the form of Liverpool council's new ‘underground superbins’, installed for the first time in the city at Battenberg Street just a few terraces away.
The council hopes the innovative design will help crack down on fly tipping and bin bags being thrown in the streets, something that’s dented Kensington’s Victorian charms in recent decades. “They’ve been working really well since they were installed,” local Cllr and cabinet member for Neighbourhoods Liam Robinson tells the ECHO.
He says a “laser-like focus” on rejecting further applications to make HMOs is also hopefully going to turn the tide and bring back a level of community pride and ownership. But for many residents, they want to plant a flag in the ground, not just bins, as a reminder of the community that still exists under the shadow of vast regeneration.
As the bingo takes a break, Sue Robinson, one of the managers at the community centre, informs everyone that a bag has been prepared for everyone to take home. Inside is a mixture of food and essentials to be stored away in case there are blackouts during the winter months. Wearing her pantry apron when making the announcement, drives home the scale of challenge faced by some of those living just metres away from a £1bn investment zone.
While the community centre has done everything it can to react to the demands of austerity, the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis, it would also like to shape its own future. It wants to try and fortify its place amid incessant shelling of deprivation and development speculation in the area.
Early in the spring, the Kensington Fields Community Land Trust (CLT) was established in the hope of developing green space and housing in what it sees as Liverpool’s ‘Victorian quarter’. But laying foundations on where the community centre currently stands isn’t proving easy.
“I’m not silly, understand that it is a prime piece of land and nobody is going to say, here's a 99 year lease for you,” says Sue Robinson, sitting in the office of the community centre, “but we can't even get a 10-year lease, so all the time everything is in the air.”
Sue says the CLT has been offered plots nearby, but hasn’t yet been given the option to take over the land where the community centre currently sits - owned by Liverpool city council. “At the moment nobody is interested [in the land], says Sue, “but in six months they might be. Then everything would be up for grabs.”
Sue adds: “We want to be a part of the change but we also want to have a say on the change. If the area didn't have the community centre, would it have a food pantry, would it have a community lunch club? We look after the vulnerable members of the community.”
Looking at the increasing levels of change in the area, Sue notes how the CLT and community centre has “to be realistic” in what it can achieve, but is supportive of the progress happening in close view. She added: “We don't want the developments to fail. We’re delighted that the royal stayed and never moved out of the area. But we never moved out of the area as well.
"We want to move on but we need help. As a community there is only so much you can do for yourself.”
'You've got to create more jobs'
Asked about the task of managing the balance in the area. Cllr Liam Robinson is confident the new developments will bring jobs and new opportunities for the Kensington community, adding: ”By the same token, we want to make sure it's the same quality development across the wider area.”
Speaking to the ECHO last year, Colin Sinclair, CEO of Sciontec, a key partner of the Knowledge Quarter and helping to drive forward the Paddington Village development, underlined the ambition of regenerating the area. He told the ECHO: “If you want methodical, inclusive, sustainable growth, you've got to create more jobs here.
“That's why [buildings like Liverpool Science Park are] important. And that's why we need to build more. That's why Paddington Village is important.
"It’s founded on the history of the city but it's also the future. The focus on health and life science is because it creates higher value jobs for people in the community.”
Speaking about the vision for development in the area, Cllr Sarah Doyle, cabinet member for City Development at Liverpool City Council, said: “Kensington Fields is an area we are working towards supporting the delivery of community housing to meet the needs of the community, by people who live in the community.”
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