LIVERPOOL Mayor Joe Anderson will this week pave the way for work to finally to start on a "Cultural Garden Suburb" to breathe new life into the former International Garden Festival.
But it could cost up to £6 million to decontaminate a section of the former landfill area before any homes can be built.
A master plan for slice of the Otterspool site is being devised by council and its housing partner Redrow, the company owned by Garston born multi-millionaire Steve Morgan.
Read: Garden Festival site to become world class culture destination
Developers Langtree held the land for some years and won permission to build more than 1,000 homes overlooking the Mersey.
But years of inactivity followed, prompting the mayor to take over the freehold after brokering a surrender of the lease.
Phase one of the rebirth of the IGF site, near to where the famous dome was once housed, will see 75 homes built, but first work to remove tons of contaminated land will have to be carried out.
A cabinet report, to be discussed on Friday, says the deal will eventually earn the city council a profit of around £3m.
“The Mayor of Liverpool has committed to creating a new cultural destination for the city within the former International Festival Gardens site on Riverside Drive," the report says.
It outlines plans for the overall development of the site and details the first phase in taking forward what officials describe as "an exciting new destination" of regional and national significance.
As the council had not had access to the site for a decade it commissioned a report to determine what remedial work was necessary to remove any contaminated land.
The report identified the site closest to the Britannia Inn as containing the lowest level of contaminated waste, making it the most suitable area for residential development.
A specialist "ground remediation" contractor identified it would cost £4.88mm to redeem the land, but a contingency a budget of £5.88m is being recommended.
Left in ruins: the dome covered a multitude of 'sins' which will now cost up to £6, to clean upIndependent valuations say the land could be worth around £9m excluding remediation fees. This could provide a low rise development of the houses on seven of the treated nine acres. It would still generate a net income for the city council in the region of £3m.
The report added that the council, working with its strategic housing delivery partner, Redrow, commissioned a study last August of the Gardens and Southern Grasslands.
It identified other parts of the site with similar ground conditions and says they can be tackled at a future date.
The land earmarked for the new developments does not include the adjoining festival gardens which are now a public park.
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