Founded more than 40 years ago, PJ Livesey is a privately owned residential developer specialising in the restoration and conversion of historic buildings alongside the delivery of high-quality new homes. The business has developed a distinctive reputation for combining sensitive heritage restoration with modern residential development, demonstrating how historic buildings can be preserved while being brought back into productive use.
The company’s work is particularly relevant across Lancashire and Cheshire, where many towns and communities contain historic buildings and former estates with significant potential for regeneration. PJ Livesey’s approach is focused on creating high-quality homes while protecting the character and architectural significance of the buildings and places in which it operates.
Its work also reflects a wider debate around housing, planning and regeneration. Too many historic buildings across the UK remain vacant or underused while planning complexity, funding challenges and regulatory uncertainty prevent them from being restored and brought back into use.
This is an issue PJ Livesey has been actively campaigning on with Downtown in Business. The two organisations recently joined forces to submit evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee’s inquiry into protecting built heritage, calling for significant reforms to help unlock the potential of Britain’s historic buildings.
The joint campaign, ‘Delay Means Decay’, highlights how buildings can deteriorate while waiting for planning decisions, funding or public-sector action. DIB and PJ Livesey have called for reforms including changes to planning policy, heritage funding, VAT arrangements and public asset disposal processes to make heritage-led regeneration easier to deliver.
For PJ Livesey, regeneration is about more than simply creating new homes. Its approach is centred on creating places with long-term value, protecting heritage while providing sustainable new communities and contributing to the economic future of towns and cities.
