The Welsh Streets -SAVE Britains Heritage Give Thier View

From Will Palin at SAVE

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/04/save-us-from-save-britains-heritage.html
Hi Wayne,

Wayne, disappointing that you've swallowed the LCC spin on the Welsh Streets - I thought you'd be more perceptive. You've played straight into the hands of a council which has perfected the divide and rule tactic. In the Welsh Streets the council has either trampled on residents or used them as pawns in their political games by promising smart new homes - which elsewhere have not materialised - and blaming those wanting to stay for the delays.As Salford Star says, Pathfinder is a 'rip off process'. On average, home owners lose £35k equity when rehoused. And that's quite apart from the affects of being uprooted from home and seeing your community
broken up and dispersed.
We are not 'slowing down' the process. LCC has had 10 years to come up with revelopment plans for the Welsh Streets but has produced nothing. All we are slowing down is the demolition of 400 decent, repairable houses and the grassing over of the site. Look at dozens of other cleared sites in the Toxteth area. Where is the new housing? Could it be that the developers are no longer interested - even though they'll be getting the land for next to nothing? Surely not?And we are not 'buying up houses to have them CPO'd' we are buying a house which we intend to refurbish in an attempt to demonstrate how, with modest outlay, some life and dignity can be restored to a shamefully neglected street which 6 years ago people wanted to live in. We hope this will draw national attention to the scandal of the Welsh Streets and eventually lead to the retention and renovation of all the surviving housing stock.Perhaps you should be asking on your blog why 'a city besieged by massive public sector cuts' has been paying a consultant £182k a year for to advise on the Welsh Streets - http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/02/18/consultant-paid-more-than-182k-for-liverpool-s-welsh-streets-work-92534-28191659/  Or why the heads of its HMR-colluding Housing Associations are (all?) paid in excess of £150k. They should be your targets, not us.Or perhaps you're too concerned with the 'glamorous' cases in the World Heritage Site and that you don't care the peripheries of the city. We are not playing games, Wayne, we are deadly serious.

As for your comments on Edge Lane. Yes, why bother objecting to the CPO of your life-long home - after all you'll just be slowing down a pointless 1960s-style road widening scheme and jeopardising the chance of a developer profiting from your misery?

William Palin

Secretary

SAVE Britain’s Heritage

70 Cowcross Street

London EC1M 6EJ

Tel: 020 7253 3500
Fax: 020 7253 3400

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/