Granby Four Streets Community Land Trust

A Neighbourhood Written Off

Granby is a neighbourhood in Toxteth, central Liverpool, comprising four Victorian terrace streets – Beaconsfield, Cairns, Jermyn and Ducie – designed by Welsh architect Richard Owens and built by Welsh workers during the late 19th century. A fifth street, Granby Street itself, connects the four and mostly contains commercial units. The area is among the oldest multicultural neighbourhoods in the country, due to immigration following Britain’s post-war period.

During the 1960s, the area was designated a ’twilight area’, resulting in many residents moving out and properties being taken over by landlords with little interest in maintaining the houses. Following the 1981 Toxteth riots, the neighbourhood entered further decline. During the late 20th century, many streets were abandoned and demolished – except for the southernmost four streets which, almost miraculously, escaped demolition. By the early 2010s, these four streets were sparsely populated and filled with tinned-up houses. The message was clear: this area and its people were disposable, written off.

A Two-Decade Fight Back

Yet for over two decades before any formal CLT existed, residents engaged in resourceful, creative actions to reclaim their streets. They cleared, planted, painted, and campaigned in order to bring these streets out of dereliction and back into use. In November 2011, residents formed a new campaign group titled the Granby Four Streets CLT (Community Land Trust) with its own board of trustees.

Assemble & Participatory Regeneration

In 2012, London-based urban designers Assemble – who had been working in the area as designers and architects since then – began an ongoing community-led project to rebuild Granby. Assemble’s approach was characterised by celebrating the value of the area’s architectural and cultural heritage, supporting public involvement and partnership working, offering local training and employment opportunities and nurturing the resourcefulness and DIY spirit that defines the four streets.

Erika Rushton, Chair of Granby Four Streets CLT, said: “Assemble are the only ones who have ever sat and listened to the residents, and then translated their vision into drawings and models, and now into reality.” The partnership worked not by imposing a master plan, but by learning from what residents had already begun.

The Turner Prize & Recognition

In December 2015, Assemble won the £25,000 Turner Prize – the first time the award had been won by a group or collective, and shocking many who did not consider architects as artists. The prize was a breakthrough moment. Turner Prize judges praised what they called “a ground-up approach to regeneration, city planning and development in opposition to corporate gentrification.” The jury’s citation stated that Assemble’s work drew “on long traditions of artistic and collective initiatives that experiment in art, design and architecture. In doing so they offer alternative models to how societies can work.”

The nomination also catalysed new projects. Assemble set up Granby Workshop, an architectural ceramics workshop on Cairns Street, as part of the 2015 Turner Prize. Objects made in the workshop are sold, with profits used to kick-start the long-term life of the project.

Renovation & Ownership

The CLT purchased 13 properties on Cairns Street for £1 each as part of a council scheme and proceeded to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds to make them habitable. The residents’ CLT also took ownership of four derelict shops on the corner of Granby and Cairns Street. Renovation of other properties by residents used low-cost materials and leftover waste from demolitions. Various partners have worked on the project, including HMS Housing Solutions, Plus Dane and Liverpool Mutual Homes. The 10 House Project included the renovation of five properties available for social rent and five properties for sale at affordable prices.

Further projects followed: the Granby Winter Garden (two derelict houses transformed into a ‘secret indoor garden’) and new housing schemes. Work continues. More homes are underway, and new uses are being developed for Granby Street itself.

Why This Matters

Granby Four Streets demonstrates that regeneration need not mean erasure. It shows that a neighbourhood can be renewed by the people who live there – not despite their poverty, but through their knowledge, creativity, and determination. It proves that art and architecture are not decorative but can be tools for political and social transformation. Most crucially, it offers an alternative vision: instead of demolish-and-rebuild imposed from above, it says: listen, stay, rebuild together, keep the people. In a context where so many communities have been scattered by ‘regeneration’, Granby Four Streets stayed put and won.