Grosvenor's £850m project in good hands

City Editor Larry Neild meets Peter Ryan, the Irish-born civil engineer who is to mastermind the ambitious Grosvenor project soon to get under way in Liverpool city centre

THE man who will spearhead the construction of the Paradise Project, Liverpool's most ambitious ever city centre development scheme, has the perfect credentials for the massive task ahead.

Peter Ryan is project director for Laing O'Rourke, the engineering combine hired by Grosvenor to mastermind the entire £850m project.

The Cork-born civil engineer has an impressive cv of large-scale projects, having built Bluewater, in Kent, one of the UK's biggest shopping and leisure complexes, as well as tackling mega complexes in Sydney, Queensland, Madrid, and Solihull.

Liverpool has become his home until 2008 when he hands over the complex to Liverpool as one of its key Capital of Culture offerings.

He has organised the building and construction programme with military precision - down to specific days when individual concrete beams will arrive on site.

"We will be spending £100m a year for four years, so everything has to be carefully planned down to weeks and days when things will happen. We are already doing preliminary work and so far everything is going according to plan." By Larry Neild, Daily Post

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