Florence Gersten-A Life Spent Helping Others.

Florence Gersten.
I seem to always have to tell about the architectural distress that has befallen my city.
Forget all the stuff about Capital of Culture hype; It is a fact we are making irretrievable mistakes that with the betroth of a legacy of disdain on those who need the help, the next generation.
While the Riechmarshal Nigel Lee and his pock markers down at the planning department have set about destroying the Liverpool essence that sense of place and infilling it with glass boxes, Florence has fought all the way. Every week she trawls the planning lists.
There is only an amount that one person can do no matter how knowledgeable they are.
While Dads Army at the Liverpool Conservation Department (sic) have not even bothered to put up a fight she has been there working hard.
46 Listed Buildings we have lost while Glynn Marsden and Steve Corbett have been around. How can they call themselves Conservation officers with this record.
We even have a buildings at risk officer full time…the cushiest job in the city its like ringing the Carlsberg helpline….ring,ring……..ring,ring…ring,ring …deadening silence.
Florence Gersten is an unsung hero. Her life is spent attaining the architectural knowledge that helps her opinions to be formulated.
She is never far wrong. She is always a help, dedicated to helping to save the heart and soul of Liverpool. Not just the big areas like the WHS, but the run down areas that are a bit rough around the ears.
The problem is that when you have an uneducated clutter of uncultured idiots on the planning committee her opinions are like pearls before swine.
Now led by David Irving, who allegedly lives in Southport, so what does he care about what happens here, the planning committee is made up of numbskull's. Florence has probably forgotten more last week than the whole lot of them have or will ever know in their entire lives about architectural taste or terminology or its history.
Lady Doreen Jones who recently said, “Politics is a dirty business” who was chair of the planning committee used to brush her aside when she was playing political shenanigans and use her opinions when needed. I was at the committee meeting when a lady shouted “Shame on you Doreen” such was the anger she evoked in her dirty business.
Florence does all her printing and expenses from her own purse and it must have mounted up over the years. Nothing I have ever enquired from her has ever been too much trouble. She is an unsung heroine fighting the insurmountable odds with developers and a council with massive budgets. She will always know about the detail of a Georgian fanlight or a unique dwelling that cannot be seen from the road.
Despite sometimes not being in the best of health.
Her knowledge and understanding should be used to enhance a grasp of the past, and if that was done we would be far better with an architectural legacy of her choice than a load of tacky glass boxes that are thrust upon us of recent dates.
Florence Gersten should be listed as a monument to one lady’s fight against insurmountable odds.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2007/10/15/world-legacy-lost-64375-19951585/
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/src/webroot/ldp2/liverpool-life-features/liverpool-special-features/2009/02/04/preserving-the-future-wealth-of-liverpool-64375-22849428/
SAVE EXPO Liverpool Triumph Disaster and Decay.
http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/expats/localhistory//tm_headline=the-city-s-magnificent-seven%26method=full%26objectid=18579168%26page=1%26siteid=50061-name_page.html