Earlier in the week the Daily Post and Echo were reporting that the hearing in the High Court for the future of Edge Lane and the CPOs were being heard. Today we learn that Elizabeth Pascoe has failed in her latest attempt to halt the demolition of her home.
I spoke on Monday about the need for progress since the community has been shattered by the years of waiting, by the years of dispersal, by the degenerating effects of boarded up houses, rotting, while the waiting lists continue to grow.
There is still an appeal to the European Courts to be heard but I am sure that they will take the same line as the British courts have. I have not been a fan of these proposals for Edge Lane in the past and have tried to get some of them changed, particularly those in mind for Toft Street where we are knocking down perfectly good houses because some guy at English Partnerships (or whoever it was) said that they were too much like Coronation Street!
However, I have come to realise over the last 18 months or so, that we need progress here, for the common good, for benefit of the majority, for those people who need the new houses to be built so that they can move into them, for those people who do not want the world to go on thinking that Kensington is empty and boarded up, for those people who cannot run small businesses because there are no customers living in the area and indeed for people in other parts of the city who are ashamed of our principal gateway.
Enough is enough! The scheme must now go ahead.
7 comments:
the problem is the liklihood is that the corridor houses will be built , but the streets behind will become the most expensive bit of "pasture" in the country. The none CPO houses are already being demolished and replaced with.... topsoil, to be grassed over.So Sheep can safely graze! sponsored by Bellway 20/20. We could have an adopt a sheep scheme....mines called Warren
Whilst I admire Mrs Pascoe's tenacity in sticking with the issue, I think it is unforgivable of her to allow the continued blight and dereliction of the Edge Lane area. She has had her day in court, and she should now, in my opinion, accept the court judgement to allow the development of Edge lane and Kensington,.
The current blight, that is an atrocious first impression to visitors to Liverpool, must swiftly be put an end to.
I dont think Elizabeth is to be blamed for any of this. She has fought for the right to save her home, and I would hope that we could respect that. But now that the legal challenges have been pretty much exhausted and she does not have the money left to challenge any more, then we need the council to act swiftly to come to a settlement with all remaining home owners. We need to see the houses come down and the work begin on the new ones.
I hope Steve is wrong about there being lots of grassed areas in the future, and nothing built on the foundations of what were perfectly good houses that this council has been determined to take off people.
But I suspect he might be right, given that phase 2 of Gillead and Lomond is under threat and phase 2 of the Neighbourhood centre has been all but cancelled.
I hope we are not merely creating lots of great sites for fly-tipping, just at the time when the new deal comes to an end with an uncertain future hovering over the wardens and the clean team who would have had a chance of getting on top of the dumping.
But we must not be negative, we must genuinely hope that the money and the will is there to get on with the the new build, not just the demolition.
Going ahead with housing schemes when the housing market is collapsed could be seen as either mad or inspired.
Depends on whether you are out to make a fast buck, if its done for purely commercial reasons then it must be the former, but if it is done for social gain ie part ownership, social housing done in a community land trust context then this would be the inspired choice, firstly the housing market will recover and the "profit" will be held in, with and for the community, secondly the area will look more (attractive, because there is house building going on, you can get one without being minted and its gives a "positive" reason to here (ie a nice house)). Oh yeah theres a housing shortage in Liverpool dont you know!
Presuably HMRI pathfinder funding (over £400 million in Liverpool's case) is a state subsidy to encourage this type of positive public (none profit or social/communtiy profit and gain works, not to line the pockets of Bellway, Riverside 20/20(20/20 is actually a private company part owned by Mouchel http://www.mouchel.com/ and LCC).
You can tell what the real agenda is behind this work (not the govts agenda by the way)by check out the sudden "cold feet" by the partners because the "Cash Cow" is now constipated if not dead.
And finally St Liz Pascoe (I have written to the Pope on this one) hasnt had anything to do with the Gilead, Neighbourhood centre, Lomond etc etc delays, no one to blame there except themselves, just a fucking big cockup. She proabably was responsible for the saving of Brae Street area though. If Edge Lane hadnt been delayed then Brae street would have been laid waste
Will these plots of greenery be "common land" in other words can I put my organic Gloucester Old Spots and my Merino flock on there for free? (get down Warren!!)
The ironic thing is Bellway building on Tunnel Road and the turfing over of Edge Lane Street/Meadows(if you remember Tunnel road had been grassed for over ten years) only half of which is actually now being built on (land banking), it went ahead really as a sweetener to Bellway to compensate for Edge Lane Delays.
The scheme won an award last year.....
BUT How many people in those houses are "displaced" Edgelaners?
how many houses are left unsold,
when is the second plot of land further towards smithdown going to be built on
and if you remember some local people tried to stop this building claiming it was "green space" and not brownsite, and now everywhere is going to be green space, courtesy of the suddenly "greened" bellway.
I predict a slightly greener looking "Boot Estate", you build "nice" houses around the outside and do bugger all in the centre. The boot estate looks liek a cross between a Nuclear bomb test site, or one of those "mock" villages that the MOD have for troops to practice fighting in Bosnia/Iraq/Kensington in
if you want to see what edgel lane is going to look like google "hunts cross village", I've seent he future and it's Bellway shaped
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