Every city has a street that somehow manages to define it’s spirit, history and potential.

Bold Street does a fine job of capturing the essence of Liverpool. It is the poster child for Liverpool, a time capsule oozing an independent nirvana and the one street in Liverpool you can eat all over the world. It isn’t just nice to look at either, there are some pretty brilliant facts propelling the renaissance. A business every month for 24 months has opened, a vacancy rate of 3% and footfall has increased more than 6%. There’s old favourites such as LEAF, News from Nowhere and Bold Street Coffee and new kids on the block Maray, Mowgli and more pushing the boundaries of the independent food and drink scene.

So, sounds good, right? Well they say if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, but a recent independent assessment found it lacked ‘dwell time’ and ‘greenery’. The dwell time has surely increased since the bargain shop where the woman’s voice echoed out deals all day has stopped. Liverpool BID company have taken this feedback on board and have planted the seeds, so to speak, to rectify this. They plan to put benches and seats at parked bays, otherwise known as a ‘parklet’, and to create planted areas throughout. Might not sound like it’d have a massive difference but imagine how the illustrations give a real insight into how vibrant the street would be. When Bold Street Coffee or Leaf is too full you can pick a seat and watch the world go buy with a coffee in your hand. It’s the simple things like this in life that are often the most enjoyable. Parklets have become a big hit in a lot of cities, especially San Francisco, and plan to provide more space and amenities for passerby’s. This would be the first set of parklets in the whole of UK which would be great for the city.

Bill Addy, Liverpool BID Company Chief Executive, said:

“Bold Street continues to grow from strength to strength and the variety of shops opening shows just how attractive a trading environment the street is. The BID Company will continue to do its utmost to support, promote and improve the street’s appeal and we hope to have concrete developments in the next 3-6 months on both the seating proposals and waste management issues.”

They’re in talks with the Liverpool council to make this happen. Let us all get behind the BID to make sure this happens and make Bold Street an even better destination than it already is. Let’s not forget it was only a couple of years ago Bold Street looked like the picture below. A poignant reminder of how far we’ve come and how far we can still go.