The Daily Post is claiming Littlewood's on Edge Lane has been saved..... again!This is strange this is one building we did a couple of hundred hours convincing the Council that this was worth saving. Then it was knocked out to Urban Splash and we were about to see the new tomorrow for Edge Lane....again... while instead they plan to build B&Q style sheds all over it.
English Heretic Mr Hawkins who refused to list it, said that the area should be made a conservation area. Mike "No More Than A Tory" Storey who was the Council leader at the time, was disgraced, and is now the Lord Mayor, is a schoolteacher, and was, at the time, on the board of the NWDA who owned it and he was also on the board of the Liverpool Land Development Company who were crawling all over this area just before it was handed over to Tom Floxham & Co.
Hawkins said to me he had to take into account the economic situation of the area and I made an official complaint against him as this is not EH remit.
This Conservation Area status, or listing, never happened......conveniently for those wishing to develop the area. This is all a couple of hundred yards from the Pathfinder area. http://www.edge-lane.com/
Now they want to make this into a school which may or may not be a good idea the editor of the Ghost thinks so, but what is alarming is that all the previous documentation to the plight of the area by the LPT does not come along with the current reporting and is not on the Ghost website, there was pages of it.
So a good "Storey" was had by all.
Private Eye reported our plight. SAVE and the C20th Society wrote to EH.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/education/education-news/2009/06/08/two-liverpool-schools-to-move-into-iconic-littlewoods-building-92534-23813547/
So the new dawn was announced before.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2007/10/24/developers-save-littlewoods-building-64375-19998780/
Credit Crunch his home.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/09/16/urban-splash-may-have-to-slash-up-to-half-280-strong-workforce-64375-21824319/
DID MIKE STOREY HAVE A "GAY" DAY?
Blame me for the rain I wished all week that it would hiss down on "Jackanorys" float but instead it leathered it down all over the city. Sorry about that.
DON'T RAIN ON MY PARADE.
I caught up with the Lord Mayors Parade in Church Street by default when I heard the band and then saw two giant green plastic Liver Turkeys walking down the street with two embarrassed people inside, faces going 'why did I volunteer for this'. Like two giant plastic chickens Tommy Cooper used as props with heads in, it was a embarrassment. Directly behind was the man himself looking like a Dickensian Character in a red coat and a dopping a trefoil hat. Some people will do anything for power. Its like watching a character from Sunset Boulavard, 'I was famous once, Ill be back'. He had just passed Reximillions office and there was no sign of him waving or joining in the celebrations. It seems they don't get on any more. The Parade went right along the outskirts of all the land Mike "Tory" Storey gave to the aristocracy his Dukeness of Grosvenor-pool. Onwards to all the land given away by the council to Beetham. Not far from the land the NWDA gave away to Neptune at the Pier Head. You know, this fella as council leader gave half of our city centre away. Berni Turner was nowhere to be seen either. It seems they dont get on anymore either. I wonder why? Storey had tried to get rid of the military from the parade, a mole at his office told, and they, at the Lord Mayors office even had to fight with him to retain what is a big calender event for raising canon fodder for the war in Iraq.
Anyway I was on to a 70th Birthday celebration for Philip Browning who edited the wonderful Buildings of Liverpool which was for a long time Liverpool's Architectural Bible.
I did not wish to hang around to see any more soggy crepe paper hanging off grim incarnations made from sqeezy bottles and toilet rolls at the Valerie Singleton school of decoration. Once the disguise falls down so you can see the milk float underneath and Ernie the milkman is sitting there fed up with a 300 decibel speaker on his head the funs over for me, so I carried on, as last year pathetic event was sad enough, and it was sunny.
Peter de Figeurido was on my table at the Atheneum lunch he or Trueheuz his partner never said a word. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/search/label/Peter%20de%20Figeurido
Though Graham Fisher of VicSox a man who has our admiration was there along with the architect David Backhouse and it is with many happy returns to Philip who was a town planner for LCC.
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Mr Hawkins didn't refuse to list it. He's only one in the chain of many. It's the DCMS / Secretary of State who has the final say, and it can and at times does overide any report from EH. I think it was marginal for listing possibly, but a big push for Conservation Area status is possibly the way to go.
ReplyDeleteAs I have the report in full, its fair to comment that he was the person who refused to list it as he was the one who recomended it not be listed.
ReplyDeleteHe's only one of a chain of people. DCMS had been known to override EH; the Secretary of State is the person who lists.
ReplyDeleteBut when the NWDA own the land which is the government Regional Development Authority how can it not be influenced?
ReplyDeleteWhy should it be?
ReplyDeleteThe building is either listable or it isn't; while a good building, should be ona local list and in a conservation area, I frankly think it marginally not listable. Getting c20th buildings listed is very difficult, and there are other, possibly better, examples of the period listed.
Very Naive to have that opinion you obviously are not familiar with Liverpool politics
ReplyDeleteThis elegant building would have been ideal as the new Liverpool museum, better to have saved it for this than to ruin the waterfront with the ugly eggbox museum. The proximity to historic Edge Lane station could have raised the possibility of a railway museum as part of the exhibits. Totally unsuitable as a school due to the nearby roads.
ReplyDelete