PEEL Holdings'  £5.5 billion Liverpool Waters scheme has been unanimously approved by Liverpool City Council's planning committee.

The approval of an outline application will now be referred to the Government. 

The decision, which was given the green light by 10 votes to 0, will throw into jeopardy the Mersey waterfront's status as a World Heritage site, cultural campaigners warned. 

The vote came despite objections from English Heritage which accused the city council of "significantly downplaying the adverse impacts of the development on Liverpool's outstanding heritage". 

Taj Mahal

The Liverpool Waters development, if it actually happens, would include a cruise liner terminal, thousands of apartments and the tallest UK building outside London in a project that would take 40 years to complete. 

UNESCO inspectors had warned because of the sheer scale of the development, over 60 hectares of north docks, approval could lead to the removal of the city from its WHS list which also includes the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids. 

But Council Leader Joe Anderson dismissed the arguments, saying Liverpool could, in effect, have its cake and eat it. 

"Everybody – including the committee - is well aware of the concerns about heritage, but we can have the strikingly modern, while retaining our world heritage status. I have never regarded this as being either, or," he said in a council statement. 

“With the safeguards the planning committee has insisted on, we can have Liverpool Waters living comfortably alongside the World Heritage Site." 

He added: “If this application had been rejected then we would have been left with huge stretches of derelict dockland cheek-by-jowl with our World Heritage site.” 

Liverpool City Council’s planning committee has granted outline planning permission for Peel Holdings Liverpool Waters scheme. The permission is subject to the signing of a legal agreement and has to be referred to the Government who will decide if a public inquiry will be held. 

Peel supremo Lindsay Ashworth has already warned that if the Government does call in the scheme, the company will walk away. He repeated this today, saying, “There is no Plan B”.

*Larry Neild's analysis from the Town Hall meeting will be published later.