Monday 1 February 2010

Liverpool Waters-Glass Pie in the Sky. We Need a Public Inquiry.

It is that easy to put a few bits of perspex on a sheet of ply and tell everyone you are going to create a 5.5 billion pound development. I think this will never happen. What will happen is Peel will get planning permission and then knock the land out to developers such as City Lofts who went bust because they could not sell the appartments in Milton Keynes-On-Sea, Princes Dock. I attended the Peel exhibition in Whitechapel, it took me ages to find it there was no signs outside. Well when I finally got in, it is as bad as what I thought. All my life I have waited for Liverpool to pull its socks up to come back on centre stage to get investment and when we do get capital investment they destroy the world heritage site. These proposals are to turn Liverpool into Shanghai-on-Sea and they are potentially as destructive to Liverpool as what has happened to the world heritage site at the Pier Head.


I spoke to someone from the architects Chapman Taylors offices called Paul Taylor quite a nice man…..unlike the Development Director Lyndsey Ainsworth who was rather rude and obnoxious especially after I told him there should be a public inquiry. I did not introduce myself but he kept on accusing people of standing in the way of progress. I have heard it all before when they rolled out the Mann Island plans the Cloud Fiasco and here we have a new set of carpet-bagging arrogants who want to foist another set of third rate blocks of flats this time on Central Docks and calling it Liverpool Waters. We want to make things happen, look forward what are you doing”? he said “Well you don’t know who I am or what I am doing" as I never introduced myself”
“We don’t have to put this show on we don’t have to” he said. As if he was doing it for our benefit I told him this is for the benefit of Peels shareholders. “Shows you just how much you know we don’t have shareholders Peel Holdings is owned by one man” he knew exactly what I meant but considering that one man will benefit from all this if it is accepted by the planning authority is a very bad reality that needs to be kept in mind. This will in fact all benefit just one man. A tax exile living in the Isle of Man. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/09/cruise-wars-liverpool-gets-full-naval.html
There was a bloke talking to him who stood there staring at me said he was a local, no local talks with that accent. A group of Peel employees gathered around and Ainsworth flipped away comments I made about world heritage as if he didn’t care. “We have people working for us who know what they are doing professional people”
“Yes like Peter de Figeurido the ex English Heretic who should have advised against Mann Island and instead sold his soul”  He did not like to be matched and became a slight bit agitated especially each time I mentioned public inquiry which I did several times just to see his reaction and his twitching. “It meets all the criteria for a…public inquiry” http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/peeled-in-front-of-our-noses.html What about competing against itself with Wirral Waters.
“You just dont want anything to happen to a run down place” How long have they owned it.
You only have to look at Milton Keynes-On-Sea which is Princes Docks.
What was clearly visible to me was what I warned of months ago that Peel want to make a Cruise Liner Facility, not a jetty, and they have the customs office. Why don’t you just use ours and pay the 9 million European grant back I asked. “We don’t want to we want our own”. We can see right through the perspex blocks, we have heard it all before. When I questioned him about the press reports "Dont believe what you read in these local papers" he said in his Manchester  accent.
“Yes its all politics, I said, the Salford Star is the journal what tells it straight about Peel Holdings” http://www.salfordstar.com/default.asp put Peel Holdings or the NWDA into their search box http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=452 Try this one
He also said a underwater survey has been done of the old landing stage they have let rot but Peel has no plans to demolish it. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/09/liverpool-cruise-liner-cock-up-blame.html Yes and I believe that one.


"We are doing you a favour Ashworth proclaimed", It seems that a misguided arrogance from Peel will grow in the coming months………..until we have a public inquiry.

3 comments:

  1. How cheap and nasty is that view of the waterfront? UNESCO seem to have washed their hands of the area they saw fit to bestow "World Heritage" status on. Another reactive monitoring mission is needed before more damage is done. The proposed Peel scheme is massive and needs careful consideration before being given the green light by our supine council. A public enquiry is definitely needed, we can't leave this to our planning department who have already allowed so much damage to be done. Need I mention the ferry terminal carbuncle?
    Reading between the lines gives me little confidence in the motives behind the scheme, or the possible piecemeal land sell-off.

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  2. Ronnie de Ramper2 February 2010 at 16:08

    It is indeed all about planning permission. Once that has been achieved, the sale price of the land increases. And once the land has been bought - with planning permission already in the price - pretty much any gimcrack piece of lego can be erected on it.

    Don't expect to see any Manhattan-on-the-Mersey. It will never happen because there will never be a sufficiently robust local economy to provide the market base for it. If there were, or likely to be, Peel wouldn't have been able to gain a monopoly on the land.

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  3. http://www.salfordstar.com/default.asp
    Ronnie
    The Salford Star have the mark of Peel.
    What is happening in Salford is as important to Liverpool as what happens here. Peel are planning a huge development next to their new Port Salford. I think this will lose thousands of jobs in Liverpool. These proposals show loads of cheap and tacky flats but no engineering jobs they are going to Salford.

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