Soon, our flat featured in Elle Deco and Living Etc magazines. We were well chuffed, and before long we’d even had TV royalty Margi Clarke round for some filming!

But as great as all that was, there was still a lot of emptiness around the city. Urban Splash were working hard to make things happen, but the idea of cities operating beyond the 9 to 5 was alien to most.

Northern cities weren’t ready for a population, so swift change was needed. When we first moved in, there was no supermarket, save for the brilliant world food market on Bold Street. There were no bars, and our socialising was done in the old Ropewalks pub. There wasn’t even anywhere to park our car, so Jane and I resorted to making shifty deals with local people with a bit of land; one construction worker used to give us his keys at night on the agreement we shifted the car by 9am the next morning!

But soon, that changed – largely in part thanks to Urban Splash and the company’s vision and ability to make good ideas a reality. By the late 90s they’d totally transformed Concert Square, anchoring it with popular venues like Modo and Beluga – places you’d find Jane and I most nights. We started making lots of new friends – including the gang who worked in the Urban Splash offices which back then were on Wood Street.

This whole new cultural district was established, with us living in an urban utopia. I worked in graphic design, so the office was a short stroll from our flat; Jane worked as a lawyer so it was a few minutes’ walk over to the courts for her each day.

We look back fondly on this early Urban Splash era. We lived in a cool, converted warehouse unlike any other homes in Liverpool, surrounded by a growing group of friends and watching the city start to come to life right in front of our eyes.

We lived the dream for five years and, as with most back then, our decision to start a family meant we had to move out of the city. Northern cities had begun to change – thanks to the likes of Urban Splash – but we were still way off the kind of things you see now, like city centre schools and green spaces. So, we made the move to suburbia to start another chapter in our lives – becoming parents.

Though we were sad to leave that era behind, it’s been great over the last two decades living a different life, settling along the waterfront and growing our family.

We’re still as happy as we were back then, and Jane and I often play over the memories. It’s great to indulge in nostalgia and relive those days when we were ourselves urban pioneers.