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From the Scousescraper to Disneypool, Liverpool has had more than its fair share of pie in the sky schemes which never left the ground.

Last week the Sunday ECHO revealed more than £1bn worth of regeneration projects got underway in Liverpool in 2013.

Today we look back at the outlandish lost dreams on both side sides of the Mersey which never got off the drawing board.

See our pictures of the schemes that never quite got off the ground

Many of the schemes bit the dust because of a lack of funds and such was the case with a massive statue of Neptune, Roman God of the Sea, which was at one time due to come to the shores of Merseyside.

The figure, put forward in 2001 by sculptor Tom Murphy, of a reclining Neptune would have been the length of five buses with the head rising 60ft above the Mersey seabed in new Brighton.

Speaking to the ECHO this week, Mr Murphy said: “I still can’t see anything wrong with the idea. “If you look at every big sculpture such as the Statue of Liberty or the Angel of the North they all pay for themselves in terms of the visitors they attract to the city.”

Another grand scheme announced in a blaze of glory was the 1,000 feet Otterspool Tower, quickly dubbed the ‘Scousescraper’.

It would have been the tallest in Europe and included a tropical jungle, 300ft waterfall and five-star hotel.

Wiggins, the company who put forward the plans, later admitted the idea was just a tool to test the market for the former International Garden Festival site.

Before Paddy's Wigwam

The great cathedral that Liverpool never had would have boasted the world’s biggest dome, even larger than St Peter’s in Rome.

The foundation stone for the immense Catholic cathedral, in Brownlow Hill, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, was laid in 1933. The design would have dominated the Liverpool skyline, dwarfing the Anglican cathedral. The height from the lowest step of the western front to the top of the lantern was to have been 520ft.

But work was interrupted by World War II and once peace arrived, the full design proved too expensive to complete.

So the current Metropolitan Cathedral was built instead upon Lutyens’ crypt, the only part of his visionary design to be completed.

Knock down the Albert Dock?!

In 1970, new plans were revealed to fill in the Albert Dock and knock down the now-iconic surrounding warehouses.

In 1970, developer Harry Hyams unveiled the £100m “Aquarius City” office complex. Albert, Canning and Salthouse Docks would have been filled in for underground car parks topped with water. But by the end of the year, the project was abandoned.

High and mighty ideas

A spectacular skyscraper planned for Liverpool’s waterfront would have contained the UK’s highest living space.

The structure was set to soar 54 storeys and 170 metres into the Merseyside skyline and comprise 412 apartments as well as retail and leisure space.

Liverpool developers Y1 Developments and Richmont Properties (comprising Custard-Pie Properties and WFB Properties) submitted plans for the scheme on the site of the former King Edward pub, near to Princes Dock, in 2007 but they were later withdrawn.

Peter Buglass from Custard Pie Properties told the ECHO this week the reason the project hadn’t been taken forward was a lack of funding.

He said: “It’s still a possibility. We would like to speak to someone who would like to work with us.”

Rail to nowhere

After 13 years of speculation, the Merseytram scheme was finally derailed last year.

The plan for the line from Kirkby to Liverpool was first hatched in 2001, with funding approved by the Department of Transport in 2002.

In November 2005 the government withdrew the £170m of funding for the project.

But Merseytravel pressed ahead before finally scrapping the project last summer.

Ski Sunday - in Kirkby

Insurers called a halt to the Kirkby dry ski slope, which cost £114,000 to build at 1975 prices, due to fears that the giant mound might bury nearby houses or collapse on to the M57.

An opposition councillor at the time described it as "Britain’s most expensive pile of dirt".

Too much towering influence

Plans for a dazzling sail-shaped skyscraper on the Mersey waterfront were knocked back by government in 2006.

The 52-floor building at Brunswick Quay was subject to a public inquiry amid fears the £120m tower would damage the nearby World Heritage Site by attracting attention away from it.

Everton way out on the waterfront

More than a decade has passed since Everton FC shelved plans to move to Liverpool’s waterfront.

The club first lodged an official bid for Kings Dock in October 2000, its was one of seven bids for the site. English Partnerships then confirmed Everton's Kings Arena plan as the preferred developer and a battle to win £35m of Euro funding for the project was launched.

In 2002 the plans collapsed because of spiralling building costs.

Popped off

Coco-cola's world headquarters was once said to be coming to Liverpool.

London-based chartered surveyors Pepper Angliss and Yarwood proposed a 140-storey office tower – the world's tallest – on a site near Herculaneum Dock in 1979.

The development was said to be earmarked as the new world headquarters of the Coca-Cola Corporation.

But the soft drinks giant had no plans to quit the US and the plan rapidly lost its fizz.

Micky Mouse idea

In 1984, the ECHO reported on talks to bring Disneyland to the city. Disney was urged to look at the International Garden Festival site and at land in Speke.

Disney’s European park was later built near Paris.

A fourth Grace?

The controversial “cloud” building was ditched in 2004 because of spiralling costs.

The design by architect Will Alsop for Liverpool’s Fourth Grace at the Pier Head was due to incorporate the new Museum of Liverpool.

There was uproar at the time surrounding the fiasco as the building was due to be Liverpool’s flagship Capital of Culture project.

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