Friday 21 September 2012

Save Eldon Grove

100 years after it was bult here it lies rotting when it should be restored. Opened in 1912 by the Countess of Derby it was Grade II isted in 1985 by English Heritage as a structure of national importance. There have been several attempts to put schemes together to bring it back to life but these have come to nothing. While the City Council are working with subsidy farmers Peel Holdings to develop Liverpool Waters, Eldon Grove rots away. Should it be CPO'd befoe it is too late.

Monday 17 September 2012

PEEL HOLDINGS £31 MILLION PUBLIC SUBSIDY FOR PORT SALFORD

We take the opportunity to inform Liverpool public how public subsidies are being used to ship Liverpool Dockers jobs out of the city.

PEEL HOLDINGS £31 MILLION PUBLIC SUBSIDY FOR PORT SALFORD
 http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=1493


Star date: 11th September 2012
HUGE PUBLIC SUBSIDIES FOR PEEL – IN RETURN FOR HOW MANY JOBS?
`wild claims and job figures that venture into the realms of fantasy…Like, the implication that Port Salford will wipe out two thirds of unemployment in the city…'
Yesterday Salford Council signed a £30million agreement with Peel Holdings for the development of Port Salford and its new infrastructure. Peel has also had almost one million Euros from Europe for its plans.
In return for near £31million of public grants and loans Port Salford is supposed to create jobs – but the figures vary wildly from just over 1,000 jobs to over 10,000 jobs. Like MediaCityUK was going to provide 15,500 jobs, yet again, this is all based on gobbledygook…

Full story here…

PORT SALFORD PART 2
Calculating jobs is all so easy…
AI = [GI x (1-L) x (1-Dp) x (1-S) x M] – [GI x (1-L) x (1-Dp) x (1-S) x M]
This is the simple equation that Amion Consultants, acting on behalf of Peel Holdings, has used to work out the amount of jobs that might be created at Port Salford, Peel's massive road, rail and Manchester Ship Canal project in Irlam.
The final figure is worked out by `employee per square metre' and then slapping in `net additional impact' (Al), `gross impact' (Gl), `leakage' (L), `displacement' (Dp), `substitution' (S) and `multiplyer' (M). It's all very scientific. Until you realise that virtually every document you look at regarding jobs at Port Salford comes up with a different figure.
This particular equation comes up with a total of 3,067 jobs for Phase 1 of Port Salford. Which is a bit of an increase from the Port Salford planning application from 2009, when there were only 1,170 jobs on offer. And slightly different from Peel's own website which states that the Port will generate "3,858 gross permanent jobs". The figures vary by over 2,500 jobs.
Does it matter? Very much so! Because Peel Holdings – one of the richest companies in the country, run by tax exile John Whittaker, the 29th richest person in Britain (who saw his personal wealth grow by £100million last year according to the Sunday Times Rich List) - is using Salford's poverty to gain million of pounds of public money and to destroy the Green Belt in the process.
Yesterday, Salford Council finally approved the agreement to hand over £30million of public money to Peel Holdings for the Port Salford scheme. Within that is a £4million grant from Salford Council, plus an £11million loan for infrastructure which is costing the Council £360,000 per year in repayments for the first five years.
Meanwhile, the Government's Department for Business Skills and Innovation's Regional Growth Fund is chipping in another £15million, and Europe's Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency (TEN-T EA) has handed over a grant of 998,125 euros for viability studies.
When Salford Star first broke the story of the £30million grants last November (see here), the then Leader of Salford Council, John Merry, justified the payments in terms of jobs.
"This is great news for the city and puts us another step closer to creating 3,800 new jobs for the region" he said "We want to make a wide range of job opportunities available for the people in Salford and I am pleased that this conditional offer means we are getting closer to realising our vision."
According to the Amion equation, of 3,067 jobs it optimistically reckons will be created by Port Salford, only 730, mainly unskilled, low paid jobs will be created for Salford people. And if it pans out that there are only 1,170 jobs, as originally claimed, that would be only around 250 Salford jobs – for millions of pounds worth of investment.
But this is just the first phase of Port Salford that's not even been built yet. Peel Holdings is currently pushing for its future 100 hectare expansion into the Green Belt, with wild claims and job figures that venture into the realms of fantasy…Like, the implication that Port Salford will wipe out two thirds of unemployment in the city…
"If Salford residents with the relevant occupation were able to access the jobs created by the total Port Salford project then there is the potential for up to 63% of claimants within Salford (5,100) to find employment through the Port Salford project" states Amion's Port Salford: Employment, Gross Value Added and Business Rates Impact Paper.
Does anyone, even its authors, seriously believe that? Another wild, mad claim is that an expanded Port Salford, which would be three times the size of Phase 1, would have positive health impacts.
The same Amion `Impact Paper', almost weeping for Salford's working class, implies that Port Salford will bring down the area's shocking mortality rate through giving people what it calls `elementary occupations'.

"It can be seen that residents in the area around Port Salford have very poor average health levels" it states "It is widely acknowledged that economic deprivation has a major impact on health…"
It's also widely acknowledged that concreting over the Green Belt and letting loose 3,780 HGVs per day on the approach roads, plus freight trains thundering past, isn't good for people's health either. But that isn't mentioned.
Salford Council is currently (hopefully) opposing the intended expansion of Port Salford, during this month's `Core Strategy' Planning Inspector hearings at Swinton (see previous Salford Star article Part 1 – click here).
No doubt Peel will be rolling out these `Impact' papers, showing how 10,000 jobs will be created, if only it could concrete over the city's Green Belt.

Peel is using Salford's deprivation figures to squeeze public money and Salford's green heritage in return for jobs. The same arguments were used for MediaCityUK, when the hype suggested 15,500 jobs would be created. Hmmm. What was it? 16 jobs at the BBC for Salford people?

The job figures for Media City were worked out using similar gobbledygook…

AI = [GI x (1-L) x (1-Dp) x (1-S) x M] – [GI x (1-L) x (1-Dp) x (1-S) x M]

Thursday 13 September 2012

Justice For The 96-It Now Has To Be Seen To Be Done.

A lie gets round the world before the truth has put his trousers on.

                                                                                                         Mark Twain

How they tainted our name as Liverpudlians after the tragic events that unfolded during a football match in Hillsborough, that fateful day when the misery of so many peoples lives, ordinary peoples lives, would be sealed with grief.

After a monumental mistake by the Police Officer in charge to crowd an area of Leppings Lane by wrongly opening a gate, flooding an area of the ground that led to a tunnel that led to death for the 96.

How they lied. People, who should be trusted, lied through their teeth.

Yesterday the vindication began with an apology from the Prime Minister, Sheffield Council and the current Chief Constable who now should start proceedings against all the coppers who altered their statements.

Thatcher should be rolled out in her wheelchair and made to slobber an apology to the families of the 96 and to Liverpool as a whole because we all know it came from the top.

We commiserate with all the families who lost loved ones and all of us who have been traumatised in some way or another over those tragic events of manslaughter on what should have been a happy sporting occasion. We all knew someone or if we didn’t personally we now know those brave people who fought for justice for the 96 and the city as a whole.

They have cleared the name of their families, and our name with their resilience in the wake of tragedy. They are an inspiration to us all.

They did it with no money, against the full force of the State that let us down.

The State that we funded from our taxes to spread lies and cheat its way through a legal process that was floored, with its old boys network of incompetent Judges and Coroners who made up their own rules right under the nose of the government.

The last Labour government and particularly Jack Straw could have re-opened the inquiry and he never.

Trevor Hicks calmly said yesterday “If the State doesn’t bring them to justice, we will”.

He also called the Lying Scum editor of the Sun at the time whose name will not be mentioned here, that spread the lies a “Low Life”



So hopefully this is the beginning of the end for us all, those families will never get over the tragic day, but this will give some of them the first chance for a couple of decades to allow them to say Rest In Peace.

When you hear the words from the hymn that has become Liverpool’s anthem, remember, as you shed a tear, that,

When you walk through a Storm, Hold your head up high,

Those words means so much to us, its an inspiration that helps us through those darkened days when it seems the end is not in sight.

There can never be a golden sky at the end of the storm that was Hillsborough but all we ever wanted was The Truth.

Wednesday 12 September 2012

English Heritage Lambast Liverpool Council Over Liverpool Waters Planning Application.

Subject: Re: Liverpool Waters, L3 - Application (10O/2424)
Link to Planning Committee Agenda. Liverpool Waters Item 11 last item


This is a document that is important to Liverpool people, here it is buried, slyly, in a big news week when people, quite rightly,  have immense issues such as Justice for the 96 on their minds. The council give 5 days notice to the public to decipher this vast amount of information............They are disgraceful.

Why dont they just give us something that befits Liverpools Heritage status instead of Trafford Park-On-Mersey.

 English Heritage say " In our view the Liverpool WHS and the wider docks present an ideal opportunity for economic, social and environmental gains that could be achieved jointly and simultaneously. Unfortunately It is clear to us that Liverpool Waters has failed to take the opportunity"   What a wasted opportunity its as if the City Council are being manipulated by Peel Holdings.   But when this goes to the Sec of State there can only be one outcome a Public Inquiry and as EH say that their planning Lawyers have advised that they doubt that the conditions are legally sustainable.   The planning committe have the chance to reject documents that EH say maybe illegally drafted documents. But will they?  
You need to read the full document but here are English Heritage conclusions.