Daily Post Comment: Fresh hopes at last for festival site eyesore.

IT WAS a very different Liverpool which saw the opening of the Garden Festival site in 1984.

The city was still reeling from the riots which erupted in Toxteth three years earlier, and the Garden Festival was one of the regeneration strategies put forward by the so-called ``Minister for Merseyside'', Michael Heseltine.

Such garden festivals were then repeated in other parts of the country which were also being decimated by the decline in traditional manufacturing industries. But, whereas nearly all of these have now been transformed into residential areas or retail parks, the Otterspool site has remained a sorry patch of waste ground.

So it is welcome news today that a developer has been found, and that progress could now be made on a site which has stood idle for almost 20 years. Property company Plane Station has announced that it has received a non-refundable pounds 1. 5m payment from Merseyside-based developers Langtree. The year-long development of the reclaimed landfill site in Otterspool in the 1980s originally cost a total of pounds 12. 5m. This represented a huge investment, which was rewarded by around 3. 5m visitors who flocked to the festival's attractions. During a bleak time in the city's history, it represented a beacon of hope for the new era of regeneration.

As yet, no details have been released of what is proposed for the site. But what might have been acceptable only a few years ago will not necessarily be acceptable now. The bar has been raised, and it needs to be something everyone can be proud of, something that can sit alongside other significant developments planned for the waterfront.

Following the continued fall-out over the debacle of the Fourth Grace, some good news is sorely needed. Let's hope the plans, when they are revealed, are worthy of such an important site.