Thursday 31 January 2013

Liverpool World Heritage State of Conservation Report 1st Feb 2013

They are fudging it up again but this has appeared on the DCMS website http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/130130StateofConservation_report_Liverpool.pdf

http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/historic_environment/9094.aspx,

This is interesting as Unesco did ask for a State of Conservation report but also proposals as to how the UK State Party are to have Liverpool removed from The Unesco "In Danger" List.

What is alarming is how the report waffs on about Liverpool Central Library but it does not mention that Liverpool Library has been sold to a private company and then leased back. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/liverpool-central-library-is-to-be.html

What is also alarming is how the Chair of the unrecognised World Heritage Steering Group which contains Dr David Fleming and others http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/liverpools-world-heritage-steering.html is allowed to see it first.

 http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/world-heritage-steering-group-what.html Ian Wray the Chair, may as well just be employed by Peel Holdings.


A full report has to be submitted to Unesco by February 2013.


Posted by Liverpool Preservation Trust at Monday, August 13, 2012 http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/liverpool-on-unesco-in-danger-list.html
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Monday, 23 July 2012

Liverpool On Unesco In Danger List-The Official Report-Exclusive

Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City (United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern Island) (C 1150)


Decision: 36 COM 7B.93


The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC-12/36.COM/7B.Add,
2. Recalling Decision 35 COM 7B.118 adopted at its 35th session (UNESCO, 2011),

3. Acknowledges the information provided by the State Party in regard to the state of conservation of the property and welcomes the progress made in the implementation of the recommendations from the 2006 joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS reactive monitoring mission;


4. Notes the results of the November 2011 reactive monitoring mission, including the evaluation of the current conditions of the property, and encourages the State Party to implement its recommendations;


5. Also notes that the Liverpool City Council is inclined to grant consent to the application submitted by the developer and expresses its serious concern at the potential threat of the proposed development of Liverpool Waters on the Outstanding Universal Value of the property;

Decisions report – 36th session of the World Heritage Committee (Saint-Petersburg, 2012) page 133

6. Urges the State Party to reconsider the proposed development to ensure that the architectural and town-planning coherence, and the conditions of authenticity and integrity of the property are sustained;

7. Considers that the proposed development of Liverpool Waters constitutes a potential danger to the World Heritage property and, therefore, decides to inscribe Liverpool –Maritime Mercantile City (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) on the List of World Heritage in Danger, with the possibility of deletion of the property from the World Heritage List, should the current project be approved and implemented;

8. Requests the State Party to develop, in consultation with the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies, a proposal for the Desired state of conservation for the removal of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger and a set of corrective measures, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 37th session in 2013;

9. Also requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2013, a report on the state of conservation of the property and on the steps taken to implement the above-mentioned recommendations Also requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2013, a report on the state of conservation of the property and on the steps taken to implement the above-mentioned recommendations for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 37th session in 2013.




http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/Liverpool_State_of_Conservation_Report.pdf










The Whitehouse Public House

As I write there are fie-engines all over the road dealing with a fire.
Not sure of the extent of the damage or whether it extends to the Whitehouse Public House that has lain derelict for so long.
This is the one with the Banksy that is not a Banksy on i,t that was owned by Frenson.
All these promises about work starting shortly and how it was going to be an arts centre. Ummmmmmmmmmm


Monday 28 January 2013

Manchester High Speed Rail Link-The Biggest Threat To Liverpool Since The Manchester Ship Canal.

Why were the local press not fighting against this High Speed Rail link going to Manchester? That would make Liverpool a branch line of Manchester. How have Peel Holdings, Joe Anderson and Louise Ellman got away with this?  Why did they not fight harder for Liverpool? The link should have gone to the Port of Liverpool. One of the reasons this blog was set up was to highlight the lack of foresight to wider issues and one of the first posts we did was a critique of the then Daily Post and Echo, and how they did not report that plans for a 500 million pound planning application had been passed for Port Salford that would enable the owners of the Manchester Ship Canal to circumnavigate Liverpool. The applicants were peel Holdings who look set to lose Liverpool its WHS status. Unesco,  having recently put Liverpool on the World Heritage "In Danger" list.
Taking into account that not only are Peel Holdings intending to blight us with the proposed inaproppriate development, turning...our docks into stagnant frappacino fluff area with 6000 apartments stacked like glass shoeboxes on top of one another. They look set to put the final nail in Liverpools manufacturing coffin by sending any chance of any future industry down the Manchester Ship Canal, to an area that is now setting itself up, to take control of any manufacturing in the North West.....Salford.
Just like its merchants attempted in Victorian times when the Ship Canal was in fact built to bypass us here in Liverpool.
The Ghosts of Dockers Past must be rolling in thier graves, at how this once proud port now looks set to become a suburb of Manchester..........right under the noses of everyone. Why were the powerbrokers not doing anything about it...........Louise Ellman. 


Joe Anderson should hang his head in shame at activly encouraging this to happen.

Joe Anderson invented his certificate on the wall is a PR stunt that enables Peel Holdings to decimate this area and stop any future industry that may wish to come here.





Meanwhile some kid called Joe Thomas at The Liverpool Echo says

THE Government today insisted Liverpool will benefit from the new high-speed rail network – even though the new line will not extend to Merseyside.
 http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2013/01/28/high-speed-rail-will-benefit-merseyside
Tell you what lets just get Peel Holdings to write it.





Wednesday 23 January 2013

Mann Island Has Structural Problems


There has been a crane permanently at Mann Island for over a year now even though the building is finished. Workers have been getting hoisted up every week.......panels on, panels off. There seems to be a particular problem with the point on the Albert Dock middle building. They told us they were building a quality building and some people even believed them. Here you can see the construction methods consisting of a panel hung on to a rail. The same sort of hanging that the Malmaison just over the other side of the Pier Head at Princes Dock.....where all the panels had to be removed and replaced.  
When will they realise that in this location it needs a good solid structure that will endure the elements and lego style stick-a-brick construction is an accident waiting to happen. Architect Matt Brook of Broadway Malyan not only destroyed the World Heritage Site with his Three Black Coffins. They were built badly. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/matt-brook-of-broadway-malyan-architect.html We say he should be struck off for this world heritage disaster that Doreen Jones sanctioned by casting vote at the 2006 planning committee meeting that went to a four against four vote.



http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2006/03/09/this-is-architect-matt-brook-s-vision-for-the-pier-head-is-it-right-for-the-waterfront-100252-16793395/ The Echo even said it was good for the city. To think work started when Liverpool was European Capital of Culture.............It would be hard to make this up.






 

A panel fell off the Tesco on the facade of the Travelodge opposite with a similar fixing method.

Would you buy one of these flats with your hard earned cash?








 I thought it would be at least 10 years before bits fell off but there you go how wrong can one be.

Monday 21 January 2013

Former Owner of India Buildings Gets Seven Years For Fraud.


Achilleas Kallakis or Achilleas Heel was sent down for seven years. He didnt get enough. 

Liverpool’s India Buildings was ‘grossly mismanaged’ by fraudster Achilleas Kallakis

by David Bartlett, Liverpool EchoJan 19 2013


THE former owner of Liverpool’s historic India Buildings “grossly mismanaged” it while conducting one of the UK’s biggest-ever frauds.
Achilleas Kallakis and Alexander Williams, both 44 and from London, tried to defraud Allied Irish Banks (AIB) out of £740m and Bank of Scotland, as it was known, of £22m between August 2003 and November 2008.
The offences were carried out over five years and funded property and luxury yacht scams.
Kallakis, the “prime mover”, was jailed for seven years and Williams for five years.
Kallakis and Williams operated out of their office as the Pacific Group of Companies and defrauded AIB by using forged or false documents or claims in order to obtain substantial loans to finance the purchase of what were mostly commercial properties.
Their Pacific Group bought India Buildings, in Water Street, in January 2004 from offshore company Elan Investments.
The £45m purchase – then the city’s biggest-ever property transaction – was financed by Allied Irish.
Such was the secrecy which surrounded the deal that rumours swirled around India Buildings that he had won it in a card game, according to antiques dealer Wayne Colquhoun, who has a shop in the ground floor.
During the trial the jury was told how Kallakis used the proceeds of his fraud to fund a super-rich lifestyle in which he maintained a fleet of chauffeur-driven Bentleys, a private plane, a private helicopter, a luxury yacht moored in Monaco harbour and a collection of high-value artworks.
When Kallakis took over the running of India Buildings 3,250 people worked in the property. Today that number stands at around 400.
A source close to the court case said Kallakis’ company Atlas Management had “grossly mismanaged” the building, leading to the drop in the number of tenants.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2013/01/19/liverpool-s-india-buildings-was-grossly-mismanaged-by-fraudster-achilleas-kallakis-100252-32633264/

Thursday 17 January 2013

Achilleas Kallakis Former Owner Of India Building Convicted of Fraud

Send Him Down and throw away the keys this rat should rot in Prison.

The trouble this Achileas Heel caused is hard to imagine in terms of what it has cost all the individual people who he cost their jobs from the cleaners of his buildings to all the people who were affected by the massive confidence trick he pulled.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2008/12/03/turmoil-reigns-at-india-buildings-100252-22394368/
The first serious decline of India Buildings started with this liar telling the banks the building was full to get more cash when in reality it was starting to empty at an alarming rate.
So one of Liverpools historic buildings was left up the creek without a paddle while this shyster spent most of his time playing poker and sailing around the world in his yacht. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/16/bogus-mayfair-property-tycoon-achilleas-kallakis
This article appeared  in yesterdays Guardian it looks like the con man shyster is about to go to jail. We hope he hates the food and he gets a good old rattling from the inmates.


He was once dubbed the Walter Mitty of Mayfair but there are a few other names that we cant repeat here.

Then India Building, along with a load of other properties, was repossessed and passed on to Green Property and the problems continue with Green Property in trouble http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/green-property-group-vandalise.html causing even more damage.


http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/india-building-mutiny-by-green-property.html


http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/achilleas-kallakis-ex-owner-of.html


http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/ss-manxman-owner-charged-with-fraud.html




He also owned the SS Manxman which has now been scrapped which was part of a Liverpool Daily Post campaign to save her many people gave money to the fund. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/ss-manxman-lies-rusting-its-disgraceful.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/ss-manxman-its-over-its-scrap-and-its.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/ss-manxman-do-you-care.html

This bloke was convicted of selling bogus titles to rich Americans and Australians but still the stupid bankers lent him billions.




http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/achilleas-kallakis-ex-owner-of.html


  Properties financed by Allied Irish Bank:

India Buildings, Liverpool

Sussex House, Burgess Hill, Sussex
Hannover House, Kings Road, Reading
Astral Towers, Crawley
Pegasus Court, London Road, Langley Green
35 Berkley Square, Mayfair
Kings House and Queens House, College Road, Harrow
Apollo House and Lunar House, Croydon
32 St James Square, Mayfair
Market Towers, 1 Nine Elms Lane, London
Kingston House, Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge
8 Carlos Place, Mayfair
111 Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria
7 and 8 St James Square, Mayfair
7 Apple Tree Yard, Mayfair
Properties financed by Bristol & West (now part of Bank of Ireland):
25 Dover Street, Mayfair
88 Brook Street, Mayfair
42 Berkeley Square, Mayfai
33 Lombard Street, City of London
Properties financed by Barclays:
2 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge
31 Brompton Square, Knightsbridge
Lady K II, a 190 ft superyacht moored in Monaco
Vehicles financed by GE Capital:
$44m private jet
$8.4m helicopter
Ferry financed by Bank of Scotland (now part of Lloyds Banking Group):
€26m Mercator II, a half-scrapped 110m former passenger ferry to be converted into a luxury super-yacht Mercator


You also have to ask how did the balloons at the banks give so much money to such a Con Man.

Tuesday 15 January 2013

Tesco For Dale Street-Every Little Hurts.

They are Tescopolysing the city they now have plans submitted for 57-63 Dale Street in the World Heritage Site. Plans were put forward by the godawful architects Falconer Hall Chester for this site. They may the biggest architect whores in the city. It was a long time ago, in our opinion, that they sold thier souls, to, well not even the highest bidder.............just anyone really.
Our friends at Seven Streets wrote about them when plans that were passed . http://www.sevenstreets.com/city-living/dale-street-scheme-gets-green-light/ they quoted the architects. After a ‘turbulent’ two years in the planning stages, Liverpool architects Falconer Chester Hall have secured approval for a new hotel and retail/car park scheme along Dale Street.


“It’s been a very difficult birth,” Falconer Chester Hall’s Managing Director, Adam Hall told SevenStreets. (They went on writing) Still, with Falconer Chester Hall working on a boutique hotel, Layla – for Iliad, almost directly opposite their 57 Dale Street site (although technically on Sir Thomas Street), maybe Dale Street’s overdue happy ending isn’t so far away after all.


“Not every old building is, by rights, worthy of a stay of execution. You have to look at the overall mix. And we’re confident this development is exactly what this area of town needs,” Hall says, delighted that two years of wrangling has ended in the result he was hoping for.

We bet they’ll be raising a glass in the Vernon Arms tonight, too. Iliad were the vandals who destroyed 6 Sir Thomas Street.

Planning application 13F/0052 for 57-63 Dale Street is to remove conditions laid down in plans 09F/2531 which is to install new shopfront and anti ram-raid bollocks in the WHS.

Will those posh little luvvies who kicked up such a fuss over plans to open a Tesco in Hope Street even blink an eye at this one?
...in the WHS...........we will see.
There didnt seem to be much fuss when the opened one by the Pier Head.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/tesco-opens-store-in-liverpools-world.html

Those Tesco-tearaways are sowing the city up.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/tesco-tear-aways.html

Bernie Turner, whatever happened to the mouth, http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/berni-turner-opens-her-big-gob-again.html  used to shop there, despite a lot of fishy business
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/berni-turner-and-tin-of-sardines.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/tescopool-power-to-people.html


Is there any Hope
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/tescopool-is-there-hope-in-liverpools.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/tescopool-power-to-people.html







..

Monday 14 January 2013

The Royal Liver Buildings 1925

Here is a video that was sent by our friend Correspondent whose blog appears on the roll to the right hand side. It is a video that was posted on YouTube.

It makes you realise just what they have destroyed.

Thursday 10 January 2013

What Happened To The Historic Mersey Ferry Bell?

This is a picture taken in 2005 just before plans for the New Museum were passed on The Pier Head. This historic Bell had been around for a long time and was very important at one time to local Mersey navigation. It was under the care of Liverpool Museums who were empowered to keep it in good condition for future generations. They obviously were not doing this by the way they had badly maintained it.
See Picture below showing the rot that had set in. Was David "Fuzzy Felt" Fleming, Herr Director of NML, so embroiled in making a name for himself with the new museum, or as we like to call it "Flemings Folly" that he has forgot  to restore it and put it in the new museum. Along with the Manchester Dock Gates that was also vandalised, on the site that they owned............that cost us 750 grand in payments for breached covenants.




Has "Fuzzy Felt" forgot his promises made in writing that the Historic Fog Bell which was rung to help the Mersey Ferries steer their passengers safely to the landing stage in 'Pea Soupers' was to be restored. Some of us old enough to remember, were a common occurrence when Liverpool had a manufacturing base. 
Enquiries should be made as to where this piece of Liverpool history has gone. It cant just have disappeared........can it?