Liverpool Preservation Trust

John Whittaker of Peel Holdings May Have a Revolt on His Hands.

2012-02-15T14:04:00.000Z

By Chris Barry - Editor, North West Business News

THE planned acquisition by Trafford Centre owner Capital Shopping Centres of two parcels of land owned by John Whittaker, the founder of Manchester property investment giant Peel Group, faces more opposition from investors.
Shareholders - including Mr Whittaker who is CSC's deputy chairman and controls more than 20% of the group's shares - will vote on the controversial property deals on Friday.
The Sunday Times said investors, including Simon Property Group - which holds 4.1% of the stock, is planning to oppose the acquisitions of the land from Peel in Spain and Scotland.
click on pic to enlarge
The £8.4m Spanish land aquisition which Peel had ear-marked for the development of Trafford Centre Espana - a 860.000sq ft leisure and shopping complex near Malaga - is seen as the most controversial deal.
US-based Simon Property Group - which last year threatened to bid for Capital Shopping Centres around the time of the group's £1.6bn acquisition of Peel's Trafford Centre - described the transaction as "sweetheart deals".Another CSC investor, Thames River, has also questioned the deal, describing it as "negative in the context of corporate governance."
A third group, Henderson Global Investors, says Mr Whittaker should abstain from the vote given the "conflicts of interest."
CSC has defended its position, with chief executive David Fischel descirbing claims of sweetheart deals as "nonsense" and that lawyers had carefully scrutinised the deals to ensure all was well.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2012/01/peel-holdings-media-city-paid-for-by.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2012/01/john-whittaker-peel-holdings-chairman.html

Tesco Opens a Store In Liverpool's World Heritage Site.

2012-02-14T12:35:00.002Z

They promised us a "landmark building coming soon" and then they passed plans for a Travelodge in the World Heritage Site.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/01/travelodge-for-liverpools-world.html Then to make the matter worse in the Travelodge, is going to be a Tesco...........Every Little Hurts, but this is killing me.

You have to question the mentality of those who oversee planning blight in Liverpool. Lets show the world how you look after a world heritage site, and then you trash it.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/01/tesco-tear-aways.html Tesco tear-aways will we see the mumbies who fought to stop Tesco opening ion their beloved Hope Street. No We think not.

In December 2009 a big fuss occurred In a planning inspector ruled in favour of the city council, which had rejected Tesco’s scheme for a 27,000 sq ft superstore and indoor and outdoor markets after a major public outcry. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2010/01/15/liverpool-city-council-accuses-tesco-of-damaging-regeneration-of-city-92534-25606102/

Tesco-pool the new name for Liverpool?
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/tesco-pool-invasion-of-business.html Unless someone at the council decides to shop at another supermarket that is.
World Heritage S#ite.

AEW Turn a Blind Eye To Shoddy Work At The Museum Of Liverpool

2012-02-09T13:12:00.000Z

Architect says contractors to blame for faults at National Museum of Liverpool

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/aew-defends-its-museum-design/5031782.article Courtesy of our friends at Building Design.

The architect blamed for a host of problems that have plagued the newly opened National Museum of Liverpool (NML) has said they were the fault of contractors and nothing to do with the building’s design.
The £72 million landmark opened last summer but has been blighted by a series of faults, including dangerous and defective outdoor steps and ceiling problems linked to a collapse that injured a workman.
Owner and operator, the Board of Trustees of National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside, issued a £3.5 million writ to Manchester practice AEW last autumn.
But, in a counter-claim filed at the High Court at the end of last month, AEW hit back, defending the design and blaming the project’s contractors.
AEW, brought in to finish the project after the original architect, 3XN, was removed from the project, dismissed the museum’s allegations that the system used for the building’s suspended ceiling was dangerous and a “material cause” of its collapse.
“The [ceiling] panels were not prone to failure by reason of any design exercise undertaken by AEW,” it said. “To the extent that there are any deficiencies in the suspended ceiling, they are the responsibility of [the contractor]. The panels were not prone to catastrophic collapse as a result of any failure by AEW.”
In its claim, AEW said parts of the museum’s allegations were “vague, insufficiently particularised and embarrassing”.
In its claim, the museum said it would need to replace precast steps and the entrance terrace because of AEW’s “defective” design. It added the steps were unsafe and rainwater leaked through them into rooms below.
But AEW said the design of the steps and terrace was not defective and added that remedial work undertaken by the museum had caused a waterproof membrane to leak.
“There was no need to remedy the steps and terraces,” it said. “The closure of the area to the public was unnecessary as was the removal of substantial sections of the step and seat units. Leaving the membrane exposed and without any protection will cause deterioration and risk of damage.”
AEW said the contractor had cast the steps in the wrong shape and size, which prevented their installation in accordance with the design.
“The original design for the steps and seats could have been built had [the contractor] correctly manufactured the step and seat units,” it added.
The architect went on to say that it would seek a separate order for costs from NML “to the extent that additional costs are incurred by reason of NML’s refusal to provide the further information requested”.

Unesco may put brakes on Waterloo redevelopment.

2012-02-08T11:52:00.002Z

Heritage inspectors claim projects by Chipperfield, Squire and Hopkins would destroy views

Unesco is threatening to delay work on a string of high-profile schemes near London’s Waterloo Station because it is worried they will destroy views from the Palace of Westminster.

In December, a team of inspectors visited the World Heritage Site, which also includes Westminster Abbey and St Margaret’s Church, and is drawing up a report for this summer’s meeting of the World Heritage Committee in St Petersburg.

While Unesco has no statutory powers, it can ultimately remove World Heritage status and planning authorities will be anxious not to upset it.

The view from Parliament Square across the Thames towards County Hall

Its concerns centre on a view from Parliament Square running between Portcullis House and Big Ben to the other side of the river Thames where it says planned redevelopment work could spoil views of the World Heritage Site.

Among the schemes in question is David Chipperfield’s Elizabeth House, which developer Chelsfield is expected to submit to Lambeth Council planners this spring.
Also under threat are Squire & Partners’ Shell Centre and Hopkins’ proposed masterplan for Waterloo station — which is linked to the Elizabeth House scheme. All are part of a prominent redevelopment zone called the Waterloo Opportunity Area which was launched by the London mayor’s office in 2007.

Unesco’s visit was prompted by a report made last summer which raised a number of concerns about the Palace of Westminster site. It said not enough had been done to protect views and, as a result, local planners “should refrain from approving any new development”.

But developers have accused the heritage body of scaremongering. One developer, who asked not to be named, said: “They want to cause a fuss and scare the government in an Olympic year. The heritage protection in place is absolutely adequate.”
Another developer added: “They were talking about a buffer zone a few years ago, which is just mad.”
A Unesco spokesman defended its most recent visit and added that conservation sites were regularly reviewed to ensure safeguarding was adequate.
As part of an attempt to appease Unesco, mayor Boris Johnson has unveiled proposals to protect the views between Portcullis House and Big Ben. A four-week consultation about this view ends next week, but in the consultation document architects and developers are told that any developments within the Waterloo Opportunity Area should be “sensitively designed and be of the highest architectural quality”.
It adds: “Any development that appears in the interval between the Clock Tower and Portcullis House should not compromise a viewer’s ability to appreciate the outstanding universal value of the World Heritage Site.”
Last year Johnson gave his backing to developers working on plans close to London’s four World Heritage Sites, which also include the Tower of London, Kew Gardens and Maritime Greenwich.

He said: “The challenge is to ensure we protect the qualities of the designated sites that make them worthy of international designation, while allowing the city to grow and change around them.”

Chipperfield and Squire & Partners both declined to comment.

Courtesy of our friends at BD Magazine
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/unesco-may-put-brakes-on-waterloo-redevelopment/5031513.article

Design Council CABE Slam Liverpool Waters.

2012-02-06T12:36:00.002Z

DCCABE Slam the Liverpool Waters scheme even before the Unesco report. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2012/01/unesco-warn-liverpool-for-final-time.html They condemn the incoherent and ridiculous Peel Holdings proposals that Liverpool City Council seem willing to support. Meanwhile Joe Anderson Liverpool City Council leader says;
"Whatever happens in 2012, let me be absolutely clear about one thing: we will back Liverpool Waters.”

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2012/01/is-joe-anderson-biggest-threat-to.html
LETS GET THIS CALLED IN FOR A PUBLIC ENQUIRY.
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/cabe/design-review/1/liverpool-waters-liverpool/

Liverpool Waters, Liverpool

Designed by Chapman Taylor

Planning reference: 10O/2424

Previously reviewed: 25 February 2011. Read the previous Design Review comments

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/cabe-slam-liverpool-waters.html

We continue to applaud the level of ambition of Peel Holdings for the Liverpool Waters scheme. We appreciate the work carried out since the initial submission of the application in an effort to clarify the intent behind the application. We see the potential in the proposals submitted, but we think that this continues to be hindered by a weakly expressed masterplan and parameters that are not yet strong enough to serve as an effective planning tool by the planning authority or useful guide to developers. In our view, while the principles and objectives are broadly more scheme specific, they remain difficult to grasp due to the complex structure of the application. There is a need to convey these in a more straightforward manner in a single place alongside the scheme vision to give the planning authority a clearer sense of how the proposals will secure a development that draws on its special history to become an attractive place live, work and visit.

Scheme principles

We welcome the decision to revise the principles governing the Liverpool Waters scheme. Those contained in the Design and Access Statement are now more closely tied to the Liverpool Waters site. However, this is undermined by the variously referenced ‘key principles’, ‘overarching principles’ and ‘overall principles’ found across the application documents, including the Building Characterisation and Precedent Study and Public Realm Characterisation Study. Many of these continue to be generic or vague, for example ‘to connect spaces’ and ‘visibility of landmark buildings’. Therefore, overall the principles remain difficult to grasp and lack coherence. Every principle should be specific to the site and give a clear sense of the rationale underpinning the scheme parameters that flow from it. Clear, unambiguous principles are vital to assist the local authority in determining the acceptability of reserved matters applications, particularly in cases where applications challenge the approved outline scheme but still remain within the spirit of the masterplan.

Planning parameters

We continue to support the strategy for a parameters-based planning application. This could prove an effective way of implementing agreed principles by setting the physical confines within which development should come forward. However, while we appreciate the submission of further illustrative detail intended to support the parameters submitted, we continue to think there should be a greater level of commitment in the parameters themselves. As noted in our original response to the application, the decision not to define block footprints with limits of deviation or set minimum and maximum height thresholds for buildings highlights the limited value of the parameters as currently proposed. Developers will be left without a prescribed building ‘envelope’ to adhere to, causing potential uncertainty and confusion. The local planning authority will also find it both difficult to assess the compliance of reserved matters applications against the masterplan and harder to resist schemes that challenge the intentions of the masterplan if these are not translated into usable parameters that are expressed spatially.

The Building Characterisation and Precedent Study’s illustrations of the intended type and form of blocks and how the uses within them could be arranged gives some sense of the typology and quality of buildings sought and how richness across neighbourhoods may develop. We also welcome the analysis and guidelines on how significant historic fabric should be protected and incorporated across the neighbourhoods proposed, including buried archaeology across the site. We support efforts to create a hierarchy of public spaces, although it is unclear how the parameters will define this. For example, parameters might have set building widths and frontages to roads and water to show how blocks framing these spaces will support such a hierarchy.

We understand the intention to control all of the above through planning conditions and the sub-masterplans for each of the neighbourhoods. However, in our view, it will be very difficult to capture requirements in conditions that are best expressed spatially. While the sub-masterplans might provide that spatial dimension, the intentions of the outline masterplan could be misinterpreted if this is left to be defined at a later stage, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Therefore, we remain of the view that the outline masterplan is the best vehicle to secure this. It would help to ensure a consistency of approach across the site, giving clear direction on aspects like the definition of building frontages along the waterfront.
We note the inclusion of a development parcel phasing diagram but think its scope could be extended to include triggers for physical and social infrastructure delivery on a phased basis. In our view, parameters could also be employed to codify sustainability targets, setting a baseline against which developments should be measured.
Ultimately, the key test for any set of parameters should be whether it allows the masterplan intentions to be clearly understood and, in turn, how it can ensure design quality is maintained over the lifetime of the development. Therefore, if they are to serve as a practical tool to guide those implementing future phases, setting ground rules that establish what is fixed in the masterplan and what can change over time, it should be evident as to which parameters are absolute and which will remain loose. As submitted, we do not yet have the confidence that the parameters will provide a sound basis by which to control design quality across the Liverpool Waters site. We ask that the design team revise them to address the concerns raised above.

Spatial masterplan
It is critical that the outline submission includes a fully illustrative spatial masterplan for the whole site in sufficient detail to demonstrate that the scheme principles could be applied so as to achieve a positive outcome. The planning application refers at various points to the ‘spatial masterplan’ although no such document has been submitted. While the sketch 3-D axonometric gives some sense of the intended scale and massing of the proposals it is not a replacement for this. The 2-D ‘Illustrative Masterplan’ (Drawing CTL-016-01), submitted as one of the scheduled submitted plans, does not fulfil this role either. It neither articulates a vision for Liverpool Waters, nor demonstrates how land use, infrastructure, landscape, and building form considerations have been integrated into a coherent whole. Instead, it raises serious questions over the level of connectedness Liverpool Waters will actually achieve with its hinterland, especially the North Shore Area. It also suggests an overly complex network of routes within the site, making the legibility of streets and connections difficult to grasp.

We recognise that the spatial masterplan will need to be adaptable enough to accommodate change over the 30 year build-out of the site. Nevertheless, it is an important instrument to be used alongside the planning parameters to set a scheme which is ‘fixed for now’, that establishes a quality benchmark against which the impact of any future departures proposed can be measured. In other words, it should provide a full illustration of a potentially positive outcome for Liverpool Waters. We urge the design team to provide such a plan in its submission.

Sub-masterplans and selection of architects
Given the importance placed on the sub-masterplans to translate principles and parameters into well-functioning neighbourhoods, it is critical that these are subjected to a high level of scrutiny by both the lead masterplanner and the local planning authority. Therefore, we advise that the process of selecting sub-masterplanners should be agreed with the local planning authority to ensure that appointed designers have the necessary experience and skills to masterplan these neighbourhoods. The lead masterplanner should then continue to oversee the sub-masterplanners to ensure that they carry through the intentions of the Liverpool Waters masterplan. This has been critical to the success of Hafen City in Hamburg where both the lead masterplanner and the City maintained strong control throughout the detailed masterplanning process. This ensured that the ‘non-negotiable’ elements of the masterplan like block scale in relation to street widths were respected while other aspects like architectural expression could be varied. If this approach is adopted at Liverpool Waters it will give the City the reassurance that a minimum quality threshold will be met by every building on the site regardless of the experience of the architects involved in its build-out. The most prominent building projects should, however, be subject to international competition, particularly in cases like the Shanghai Tower where the impact will be felt much more widely than just the site itself.

Planning conditions
We understand that a design panel would be established to review individual detailed planning applications but there will be a need to step back to review the scheme as a whole as it develops. Reviews of the masterplan will need to take place at key points in the build-out of site to ensure that the intentions expressed in the approved masterplan are carried through. In our view, it is essential that an independent design review process is a condition of the planning consent as proposed.
The framing of planning conditions will be a crucial element in the delivery of a successful scheme for this historic and highly significant site. Their role will be vital in ensuring that the pace of development is managed so as to ensure successive phases do not commence until the necessary social and physical infrastructure is in place. Equally, the conditioning of any outline approval should ensure that sub-masterplans and reserved matters applications which deviate from the approved masterplan and associated parameters will not be permitted unless it can be demonstrated that they improve upon or equate to the permitted scheme. The local planning authority will need to work closely with Peel Holdings to develop a set of robust conditions to the satisfaction of both parties. The design team should consider how other projects of a similar scale and complexity have been conditioned, such as London’s Kings Cross.
Sustainability
The outline planning application does not make clear how Liverpool Waters will achieve truly sustainable economic development, as defined in the new National Planning Policy Framework. We think this critically important aspect of the proposals needs to be more clearly defined at this stage. Generic statements, such as ‘buildings will generally face south’, are not helpful and give little confidence that this has been considered as fully as it needs to be. The development will need to encourage its residents, workers and visitors to adopt environmentally sustainable patterns of behaviour, for example in respect of travel habits. The local authority will need to satisfy itself that areas such as public transport provision have been given enough attention to ensure that attractive alternatives to the private car are provided.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news//tm_headline=unesco-inspectors-attack-liverpool-waters-scheme%26method=full%26objectid=30193588%26siteid=100252-name_page.html

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/01/24/unesco-warns-5-5bn-liverpool-waters-scheme-would-irreversibly-damage-city-s-world-heritage-waterfront-100252-30189591/

Is Joe Anderson The Biggest threat To Liverpools Skyline Since The Lufftwaffe.

2012-01-31T20:14:00.003Z

"World Heritage Status Is just a badge on the wall in the Town Hall" he says. How does a city manage to elect a council leader with such a lack of culture?
He said in a published article on the 2nd January that Peel Holdings Liverpool Waters is worth sacrificing the World Heritage Site for. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2012/01/02/liverpool-council-leader-joe-anderson-says-city-would-sacrifice-world-heritage-status-for-liverpool-waters-scheme-in-new-year-report-100252-30044864/
LIVERPOOL council leader Joe Anderson today used his New Year report to reaffirm his commitment to the £5bn Liverpool Waters transformation of the city’s waterfront, despite it potentially coming at the price of losing the city’s World Heritage Site status.
The Labour councillor highlighted the benefits of north docklands regeneration citing the possible creation of 20,000 jobs and complete transformation of a large deprived area of north Liverpool.
A recent inspection by a UNESCO committee revealed the very real danger that the organisation’s opposition to parts of the project could scupper the city’s heritage status
But Cllr Anderson made clear his priorities for 2012. He said: “Turning Peel Holdings (the developer) away doesn’t say to the world that Liverpool is a thriving modern city. It says we’re a city that is stuck in the past.

“You really do need to see the scale of this project to understand just how much impact it could have.

“This, very simply, would transform our city. It is too big an opportunity to let slip by.
“The city’s leading Lib-Dem, Richard Kemp, says that World Heritage Site status is more important than the Liverpool Waters Scheme.
“The Lib-Dem would turn away 20,000 jobs and £5bn of regeneration, all for the sake of a certificate on the wall in the Town Hall.
“I say that’s madness. Whatever happens in 2012, let me be absolutely clear about one thing: we will back Liverpool Waters.”

http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/180198-scrap-heritage-site-status-if-waters-is-threatened-says-dlib.html The speech seems reminiscent of a previous outburst by Frank McSpiv. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/11/joe-anderson-sitting-far-too-close-to.html

Are they far too close?
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/06/frank-mckenna-suckles-at-breast-of-joe.html

Or is it Pearls before swine? http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/03/liverpools-world-heritage-site-pearls.htmls

This is the town that knocked the Cavern Club down lets not forget.
In the name of progress it was claimed.
Send in the Clowns. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2012/01/unesco-warn-liverpool-for-final-time.html Unesco say the scheme would destroy the OUV of the WHS.

Cllr Anderson has quite a lot of business buddies, for sure, his friends at Downtown Liverpool in business seem quite important to him.
DLIB members Peel Holdings seem to have some hold over him.http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2011/11/joe-anderson-and-max-steinberg.html He went to Frank McKenna's Xmas do where another old labour Dinosaur, Derek Hatton turned up.

This was in Cllr Gary Millars gaff in Parr Street. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/09/councillor-gary-millar-set-to-make.html
Remember Derek Hatton and his power grab, is history repeating itself?.
In the 80's when Hatton and his fellow militant conspirators who hijacked the labour party did more damage to the image of Liverpool than the Toxteth riots did. At least the rioters got the Albert Dock restored when the spotlight turned to those inner cities.
Remember how overnight he, as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, sent in the bulldozers to destroy the Georgian quarter of Clayton Square, a listed Conservation area with numerous grade II listed buildings of character and of architectural note. Is history repeating itself.
This, it was alleged in the Sunday Times was when he was acting as a "consultant" to the developers.
It is now a third rate shopping centre that has little character. it needed the Times to investigate the things that everyone in Liverpool knew, right in front of the labour card carrying reporters at the Daily Ghost and the local Echo.
Joe"Your Scum" Anderson http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/12/joe-anderson-youre-scum.html now seems content to assist Peel Holdings in the decimation of the character of what makes Liverpool a Mercantile and Maritime world heritage Site.
Is it because of the huge investment in the destruction of Liverpool's World Heritage Site he has made with them...............that we the ratepayer paid for.
http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/News-and-Comment/Unesco-tells-city-to-think-again-over-Liverpool-Waters
Is it because he became quite friendly with Lindsay Ashworth of Peel while over in Shanghai that cost us the ratepayers over a million quid.
Joe Anderson is about to become the latter day Herman Goering and knock the bollox out of the city, or whats left of the soul of the world heritage site, that the last lot of corrupted Fib-Dem balloons didn't get.
Capital of Culture you really are having a laugh.

Peel Holdings Media City-PAID FOR BY THE PUBLIC. Are you reading this Roger Philips

2012-01-27T11:08:00.002Z

Roger Philips, Liverpool's own BBC commentator tried to steer an argument on air http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/p00n0293/ about Wayne being anti-peel holdings.
He informed him on air that he, Roger had his trip to Shanghai for the Peel Holdings Circus, paid for by the taxpayers and he should make the public aware of his "jolly" trip that cost us the taxpayers 5 Grand. Maybe he should read this. He also says Unesco like the Pier Head he has not obviously read the Unesco report.

HOW THE PUBLIC PAID FOR PEEL HOLDINGS SALFORD MEDIACITYUK

Star date: 18th January 2012
http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=1256
A Salford Star Exclusive
OUR FRIENDS AT SALFORD STAR KNOW A BIT ABOUT INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM Here is recent argument they put foraward
HOW PEEL HOLDINGS HAS CASHED IN ON MEDIACITYUK – WITH PUBLIC MONEY
As Peel Holdings records profits of £55million, Salford Star reveals the huge amounts of public money that have been sunk into MediaCityUK, virtually covering all of Peel's £490million costs on the development.
Meanwhile Salford Council has waived its financial contribution policies on the site which remains in private hands, with Peel's private security company ejecting anyone it feels like…
As Peel Holdings submits plans for the huge twenty year expansion of MediaCityUK, featuring five million square feet of offices, apartments, a hotel, retail units and car parks (see here), the Salford Star can reveal that the costs of the first built phase of MediaCityUK will be almost entirely met by public money.
According to the latest set of accounts from Peel Media (Holdings) Ltd - one of the three Peel subsidiary companies that own and run MediaCityUK - the `historical cost' of its properties on the Quays was £490.8million.
Meanwhile, the public sector will pay Peel nearly £487million in rents, grants and hire fees. This breaks down as…
• BBC rent of studios £233million (over 20 yrs)
• BBC rent of offices £170million (over 20 yrs)
• University of Salford campus rent £19.126million (until 2020)
• Salford Council lease on Media Enterprise Centre £3.8million (until 2016*)
• NWDA**/Salford Council (et al) grants for public realm and transport £61million.
The total of £486.9million in public finance for the privately owned MediaCityUK means that Peel have virtually covered all its costs - before raking in profits from its 378 apartments (est value £56million), its car parks, and its office space and studios rented out to private sector companies, including ITV.
NWDA and Salford Council financial contributions for things like the main piazza at MediaCityUK and the Metrolink, have only ever been disclosed as being £30million. But a Salford Council report recently stated that a "total public sector investment of £61m has been committed into Media City for the provision of public realm and transport infrastructure".
Normally when developers build hotels and apartment blocks they have to make payments to Salford Council under Section 106 for things like open space, infrastructure and heritage. In the original application put in by Peel for outline planning permission for Media City, this was calculated to be £5.56million. But Peel never had to pay it…
"…a significant amount of public realm and infrastructure works would be undertaken as part of the proposals, which I consider would outweigh the need for the above contribution" wrote the Salford Council planning officer.
Yet the `public realm and infrastructure works' were paid for by public money from the NWDA and Salford Council! What we now know is £61million's worth of `public realm and infrastructure'. This is the same NWDA that had an ex-Peel Deputy Chairman as its Chairman, and the same Peel Media that had an ex NWDA Chairman as its Chairman (see here)
The Salford Star put in a Freedom of Information request to Salford Council asking what contributions under Section 106 Peel Holdings had made in regard to Media City…"In the case of MediaCityUK the developer committed to providing a series of public areas, including parks and squares, as well as a waterside piazza" the Council responded "...In this case the scale of the provision included within the development itself has been massive, and with the developer's commitment to maintain these areas as well, this meant that Section 106 would not be required in order to achieve the same outcome."
In other words, Peel contributed virtually nothing towards the main piazza***, which was almost entirely paid for by public money - yet its private security `police' have already ejected legal pickets from outside the University of Salford building (see here), while the Salford Star has received many complaints from people who have been stopped from handing out leaflets or filming (!) on the site.
Meanwhile, Salford Council also has in place a policy that any major housing development should make provision for 20% of it to be affordable housing. Peel Holdings has 378 apartments on MediaCityUK – but, again, this policy was waived by Salford Council's planning officer who "concluded that, given the large amount of investment and the level of public realm and infrastructure that would be provided within the site, the applicants are not required to provide affordable housing in this instance."
But the "public realm and infrastructure" was paid for out of public money!
Salford Council also has in place a policy that "encourages developers to provide or contribute to accredited training programmes for construction workers. Where this does not happen, a financial contribution to the Salford Construction Partnership is recommended."
Yet again, this policy was waived... "The applicants have commented that the proposals would result in the creation of in the region of 15,000 jobs in addition to training opportunities" stated the planning officer "Clearly, this would represent a significant economic benefit to the city. In view of this, and the other benefits and investment highlighted above, I do not consider it necessary to require the applicants to make a contribution towards training for construction workers in this instance."
So there you have it. The costs of Peel Holding's investment in the first built phase of MediaCityUK are almost entirely covered by public money. While its commitments under Section 106 were also either waved or covered by public money.
Yet MediaCityUK remains a totally private enterprise even down to the cameras the BBC use, with all profits from car parks, apartments, hotels, rents and other fees going straight to Peel Holdings.
Peel Holdings parent company, Peel Holdings (Land and Property) Ltd posted profits of £55million in its latest accounts. Peel Holdings Isle of Man based svengali, John Whittaker, last year saw his personal wealth double from £1,015million in 2010 to £2,075million in 2011, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.
Peel Holdings gave a paltry £17,000 to charity according to its latest accounts. The Salford Star is still waiting for a response from Peel Media as to whether it has taken on any apprentices from Salford. As reported yesterday (see here), just 16 people from Salford have been given proper jobs at the BBC's new base at MediaCityUK.
As plans for the huge five million square feet, twenty year expansion of MediaCityUK are about to be put before the planning panel, the Salford Star is waiting to see whether Salford Council will again waive all its financial contribution policies for Peel Holdings…
* The Media Enterprise Centre is Salford Council's new £8million office complex at MediaCityUK that will "offer a range of services to help stimulate and support the growth of media companies". Salford Council has contributed £1.7million, with NWDA (£2.5million) and European funding (ERDF £4.2million) contributing the rest.
** NWDA is the North West Development Agency soon to be abolished in March – see here for details of the very close ties between Peel Media and NWDA, starring Peter Mandelson
*** In response to another Salford Star question back in 2009, Salford Council did state that Peel was contributing £1.68million out of the initial £31.68million public realm costs but the Freedom of Info response didn't include this.
See also: How Salford BBC Jobs Cost Over £200,000 Each!

John Whittaker Peel Holdings Chairman-His Profile

2012-01-26T16:23:00.000Z

Profile: John Whittaker

SECOND-GUESSING John Whittaker is about as clear-cut as reading tea leaves, and would likely yield the same dubious results. http://www.scotsman.com/business/profile_john_whittaker_1_796848
The Lancashire-born billionaire's Peel Holdings empire is currently stalking Forth Ports, the Edinburgh-based dockyard operator. In keeping with Whittaker's notoriously private lifestyle, the Northstream consortium which includes Peel is playing its cards close to its chest, leaving investors to guess whether and when an improved offer for Forth might be lodged.
Whittaker, who celebrated his 68th birthday earlier this month, is known as a man who always gets what he wants. He is credited with patience, tenacity and shrewdness, and has displayed these characteristics throughout his extensive career at the head of Peel.
Though now living in the tax-friendly Isle of Man, Whittaker was born in the mill and textile town of Bury on the outskirts of Manchester.
Educated at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire, a mixed Catholic boarding school, he nearly went into the priesthood before deciding to remain within the family business headed at that time by his father, also John.
The Whittaker family acquired Peel Mills, a local textile firm, in 1973, but within four years the company had shifted its focus to the property market. During the decline of the textiles industry, Peel purchased troubled mills for the land on which they sat.
Whittaker's celebrated ability to spot "the next big thing" came to the fore in the 1980s, when Peel became one of the first to move into retail warehouse development. During that decade, the company overhauled an estimated four million square feet of warehouse space.
Peel Holdings joined the London Stock Exchange in 1983, though the Whittaker family retained a majority shareholding in the business. Building from its retail property base in the north-east of England, Whittaker went on to expand Peel's domain into other infrastructure assets such as airports, quarries and industrial estates.
The father of four's tenacity and zeal played a key role in Peel's acquisition of the Manchester Ship Canal Company in 1987. Observers note that he spent three years fighting an acrimonious takeover battle to eventually bring together the canal and its former fierce commercial rival, the Port of Liverpool, which Peel also owns.

This was followed by the epic ten-year struggle to build the massive Trafford Centre near Manchester, a retail behemoth of nearly 1.5 million square feet that attracts an estimated 30 million shoppers every year.
The scale of that battle is perhaps reflected by the fact that on its opening in 1998, the normally media-shy Whittaker chose to mark the occasion by abseiling into the Trafford Centre. In a further mark of respect, the classic Mercedes convertible owned by his late mother, May, was installed as a centrepiece of a display within the centre.
Whittaker took the company back into private ownership in 2004, reportedly claiming that Peel didn't need money from the City, and would prefer to re-invest earnings rather than fork out dividend payments. The deal was financed by the Whittaker family and Olayan, the eponymous investment group of the Saudi Arabian family.
Today, the Whittaker family owns about 68 per cent of the group, which includes four main divisions and more than 100 subsidiary firms. Olayan owns about 25 per cent of the group.
RREEF, the alternative investment business run by Deutsche Bank, purchased a 49.9 per cent stake in the group's Peel Ports division for a rumoured 775 million in 2006. RREEF and Arcus Infrastructure are the other two members of the consortium that is currently pursuing Forth Ports.
Control over the Edinburgh-based group makes strategic sense for Peel, which acquired Scotland's west coast port operations when it completed its purchase of Clydeport in 2003.
Whittaker negotiated that deal with Tom Allison, who was then chief executive of Clydeport, to create what is today the UK's second-largest ports operation. There have been suggestions that Peel would like to form a super-sized Scottish ports business through the addition of Forth, though there's no doubt that Whittaker is equally intent on picking up his rival's property assets at a keen price.
Whittaker is renowned for such shrewd moves, as well as his tenacity. As his longest-serving employees are keen to point out, Peel's motto of "determination, perseverance and patience" is also Whittaker's personal mantra.
Though widely regarded as an arch deal-maker who's not afraid to play hard ball, the youthful-looking grandfather does have a softer side that occasionally comes to public display.
In 2008, Whittaker donated 1m to Manchester's Children's Hospital Appeal. He explained then that his gift was prompted by the birth of his stillborn granddaughter in 2003.
"It was too late for my daughter's baby to be given a lifeline," Whittaker was quoted as saying.
"But if other babies and children can have that opportunity, then it's a wonderful cause for Peel to support. Children cannot help themselves, so we owe it to our future generation to provide the best care we possibly can."
BACKGROUND
BORN on 14 March 1942 in Bury, on the outskirts of Manchester, John Whittaker came into a family business originally focused on the town's traditional mill and textile industries.
Though he considered becoming a priest, Whittaker finally joined Peel Holdings and would lead it through a decades-long expansion that has built him a personal fortune estimated at 1.3 billion.
He is still regarded as one of the UK's leading business players and now lives on the Isle of Man, where the helicopter pad in his garden is said to be the only exception to an otherwise unostentatious lifestyle.
He is described as having a strong Catholic faith that runs through both his business and personal life.
Though separated from his wife, he remains legally married. The couple have four children – Mark, James, Kate and John – as well as a number of grandchildren.

Published on Sunday 28 March 2010 21:15 Courtesy of The Scotsman

Unesco Warn Liverpool For The Final Time!

2012-01-25T15:39:00.002Z

Wayne was asked by Larry Neild of Liverpool Confidential to put a piece forward for inclusion in a piece about UNESCO. http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/News-and-Comment/Unesco-tells-city-to-think-again-over-Liverpool-Waters Joe Anderson.........tries to reposition himself from his "Cosy" relationship with Peel Holdings.
I see this damning Conclusion to the Unesco report as a major opportunity to withdraw the planning application and get Peel Holdings to go back to the drawing board and to give to the city, what the people of Liverpool deserve. A regeneration scheme fit for the future that we can stand behind, that will create jobs.
If Peel Holdings are serious, and its not a planning permission flip, why wont they give us something we can be proud of. Why do they want to build Milton Keynes-On-Sea, what is the point in that.
It is Amsterdam that we should be looking to for inspiration and how they have developed an urban landscape that interacts with its historic waterways. This report is damning and it insists that Liverpools historic waterways should not be filled in, as that would ruin the Outstandung Universal Value. Despite that, plans for Wellington dock, that will mean no more tall ships for Liverpool were recently passed just ahead of the deliverance of the report.
In 2006 Unesco told the UK Government that Liverpool had to draw up a supplementary planning document that protected it from future administrations and their links with developers.This was ratified by the city council in 2009 and this gives us as a city, all the planning protection we now need. Planning guidance PPG 15 lays down government policies for the historic environment this city council were about to breach every rule in the book. Why?
We are as a city chjarged with managing the WHS not destroying it.
No one wants the regeneration of the historic docks more than I, all my life I have waited for it, but the intelligence of those in charge is sadly lacking the class that befits the qualities required to be a World Heritage City in the 20th Century. We will create more jobs for future generations if we respect that our history is our future. My father was a docker and I ask "Why are Peel Holdings shipping jobs to Port Salford and who is going to fill the glass shoeboxes they want to put in its place"? We need jobs but there is room for regeneration and the right job creation why not just turn Liverpool into a giant Tesco and be done with it.
What is alarming, in my view is the "Cosy" relationship between the developer and the city council.
The people of Liverpool are being denied their right to exercise their views by a compliant council who are sponsoring Peel Holdings and have hijacked the planning procedure.
I recall the last Labour administration bulldozing Clayton square, a historic listed Georgian quarter, in the name of progress.
Remember this is the town ,that knocked the Cavern Club down, then called itself Beatles City.
And gets a world heritage site status and then sets about ruining it.
World Heritage Site status is not a badge on the wall of the town hall, Joe Anderson says it is.
No it is much more than that, it is an honour to be bestowed and if managed will create jobs for our city.
With such a title that puts us up there in the top tier of world class cities. Why risk it, why chance the embarrasment, why drop an architectural timebomb on the city. Trafford Park-On-Sea.
The city council under Joe Andersons leadership now have to understand who they represent and curb the arrogance of Peel Holdings.
The city council need to take note of all the damning recomendations and insist this current backdated planning application is withdrawn and is taken back to the drawing board, whats another couple of months, before it costs the city a million pounds in public inquiry.

Mission’s Conclusion and RecommendationThe mission concludes that if the proposed Liverpool Waters scheme as outlined during the mission would be implemented, the World Heritage property would be irreversibly damaged, due to
a serious deterioration of its architectural and town-planning coherence, a serious loss of historical authenticity, and an important loss of cultural significance. It strongly recommends that the three principal stakeholders, being Liverpool City Council, Peel Holdings and English Heritage, reconvene around the table and work out an adjusted scheme that includes the observations put forward in this report.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2012/01/02/liverpool-council-leader-joe-anderson-says-city-would-sacrifice-world-heritage-status-for-liverpool-waters-scheme-in-new-year-report-100252-30044864/
Joe Anderson on the 2nd January on scrapping WHS status.

These are some of the recent press activity on 25.1.12

Unesco

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news//tm_headline=unesco-inspectors-attack-liverpool-waters-scheme%26method=full%26objectid=30193588%26siteid=100252-name_page.html

Liverpool Echo

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/01/24/unesco-warns-5-5bn-liverpool-waters-scheme-would-irreversibly-damage-city-s-world-heritage-waterfront-100252-30189591/
Liverpool Daily...... err I mean Weekly Ghost
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/24/liverpool-heritage-waterfront-damage?newsfeed=true
Guardian

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00n0293/Roger_Phillips_25_01_2012/
Radio Merseyside today

Unesco
24.1.12

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/01/24/unesco-inspectors-urge-compromise-on-5-5bn-liverpool-waters-plan-to-protect-city-s-world-heritage-site-status-99623-30187368/

Daily Post

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-16698234 BBC News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01b4fyt/
BBC unesco

Unesco Report Condems Peel Holdings Liverpool Waters.

2012-01-24T12:28:00.000Z

Mission’s Conclusion and Recommendation

The mission concludes that if the proposed Liverpool Waters scheme as outlined during the mission would be implemented, the World Heritage property would be irreversibly damaged, due to
a serious deterioration of its architectural and town-planning coherence, a serious loss of historical
authenticity, and an important loss of cultural significance. It strongly recommends that the three principal stakeholders, being Liverpool City Council, Peel Holdings and English Heritage, reconvene around the table and work out an adjusted scheme that includes the observations put forward in this report.

I cant get a full 23 pg report on the page so he is a link to the full document.
http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2012/01/full-report-unesco-inspection.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LiverpoolDailyPost-DaleStreetBlues+%28Liverpool+Daily+Post+-+Dale+Street+Blues%29

Peel Holdings plans for, Pinewood Studios Housing Development rejected

2012-01-24T12:20:00.000Z

From Mike Hafhy at NW Business News

PINEWOOD Shepperton, the film & TV studios business which was bought by Peel Holdings for £96.1m in July, has had its bid to develop a £200m housing scheme rejected by the government.
The company had been planning the development, known as Project Pinewood, for almost five years and has spent around £7.6m in a bid to try and get it through the planning process.
It was to consist of 1,400 homes around streetscapes built to look like various overseas cities - Paris, New York and Amsterdam, for example. These would be sold to homeowners but also used as backdrops to film sets on greenbelt land next to its existing Buckinghamshire studio complex.
However, following a public inquiry, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has refused permission for the scheme.
In a statement, Pinewood Shepperton said that it was "disappointed" by the decision. "The company will now take time to review the decision in detail."
It said that the investment made both in the land and the costs of pursuing the application were "not material".

"The company will continue to implement its master planning consents at Pinewood and Shepperton studios and pursue its international strategy of developing studios overseas."

All Saints Childwall-Gets the Private Eye treatment.

2012-01-20T11:24:00.001Z

Private Eye the national satirical magazine take an interest in Liverpool again, there is no shortage of work to do. This time it is the mess surrounding All Saints Childwall. 'Piloti' has ago at the Liverpool Church (gravesmashers anonymous) who want to do more damage to bodies of people who probably paid to be buried there. Meanwhile reknowned turncoat Rex Makin seems to be critical of Private Eyes 'Pilot' he says in his column this week;

THE late Sir Richard Foster, the first director of Museums, Liverpool, did a wonderful job and enlarged the museum area by taking in the old Polytechnic building in Byrom Street.
The new additional museum at the Pier Head was the subject of a savage attack recently in a leading satirical magazine. Some of its criticisms were felt by others, particularly over the direction, but figures speak louder than words and the museum has enjoyed the same popularity as its predecessor, turning in record numbers to become one of the most popular tourist attractions. However the numbers should not avoid legitimate criticism, of which there is some, but not expressed in the original vicious way it was in the satirical magazine. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/views/liverpool-columnists/rex-makin/2012/01/20/rex-makin-should-city-housing-association-be-sending-pupils-to-eton-100252-30160669/
How two faced can one be, he, has been one of the biggest critics of the new museum and of the current Director Dr David "Fuzzy Felt" Fleming making stinging attacks. Now he appears to swop sides....again.
Who pays the piper plays the tune, unfortunatly. You have to laugh at people like this.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/superlambanana-land.html
Rex Makin was Trevor Jones solicitor. Private Eye have often taken an interest in Liverpool
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/undeclared-interest-of-jones-vote.html Read this article with an edition of the New Statesman and a little slice of history it really does say a lot.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/superlambanana-land.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/09/trevor-jone-steps-down-good-riddance.html

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Liverpool- Is it good architecture, or bad?

2012-01-19T13:26:00.002Z

After CNN voted it amongst the worst 10 buildings a local debate has raged. The new look "The Post" the new weekly version of the now defunct Daily Ghost asked Wayne to write 400 words for "The Debate" which he duly did, this was to go in the first ever publication
Then after time anda bit of time and effort, it was asked to be cropped to 200. Wayne was aware that he was being lined up to say he did not like the building so he never said what they wanted.
The 400 was cut to 200 and the promise was the whole 400 would be on the website.
They speak with forked tongue there at the new look, old methods, The Post. Just when you think they are getting into serious debate, they then revert to type.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/01/19/the-debate-liverpool-catholic-cathedral-is-it-really-an-ugly-building-video-99623-30151571/

So here are the actual 400 words that Wayne submitted;
I love modern architecture, but it’s hard to like this brutalist concrete upturned funnel, though I can’t agree it’s in the world’s worst 10 buildings.

Looking remarkably like The Cathedral of Brasilia, a hyperboloid structure designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1958. It immediately leaked like a giant colander. The architect Frederick Gibberd was sued. Structural problems were not resolved until the 1990’s. The mosaic tiles had to be replaced with glass-reinforced plastic!
Jerry built, was the term, often used to describe its construction. Is it still a structural time bomb?
The outspoken and highly intelligent ecclesiastical sculptor Arthur Dooley coined the term Paddy’s Wigwam.
It sums up the 60’s, as a now outdated architecturally futurist fantasy, that at times went horribly wrong.
When tried and tested methods of construction, bent the given laws of logic to, sometimes, severe and often detrimental effect.
European funding was recently spent on its so-called realignment with Hope Street while next door, the Wellington Rooms, one of our historic gems, is derelict and sadly ignored.
Always meant to compete with the majesty of Giles Gilbert Scott’s Anglican Cathedral, it does so only by being architecturally impertinent and the use of shock effect.
Like a noisy little mongrel, barking at a graceful distinguished pedigree.
It dates from a time of religious conflict when children played football in the streets, Protestants verses Catholics.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who submitted a design for the Anglican Cathedral competition, once said 'There is hope in honest error, but none in the icy cold perfection of the mere stylist.'
The original Lutyens design was meant to be a rival to St Peter’s in Rome. He only managed the building of the Crypt before the outbreak of war, and then in the 60’s the cut-price colander idea came along.
No doubt it was sold to the public as being Iconic.
Liverpudlian’s are often defensive, of their own, but CNN have sparked off a debate that if entered into will give us more understanding of our public realm.
It’s not a good idea to risk your future by disrespecting your architectural inheritance.
Now loved by many who are proud to have two Cathedrals in the City, people now seem to have got used to it. Does that mean it’s good architecture?
Lutyens original design model is in the new Museum of Liverpool, now that is, a building that should be in the world’s worst top 10.

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral "One of the Worlds 10 most ugly buildings" CNN

2012-01-16T13:08:00.000Z

http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/top-10-ugly-buildings-117820

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/22/ugliest.buildings/

Meanwhile the Echo writes.
LIVERPOOL’S Metropolitan Cathedral has been named one of the ugliest buildings in the world by a major American news network.

Paddy's Wigwam as it is known in the city was described as “monstrous” and placed at number seven in the CNN online travel feature ‘10 of the world’s ugliest buildings’.
It was the only British building to make the list.
The article said: “There are some monstrous examples of civic architecture in the West – this prime example of late-1960s design being an unlovely case in point.“Far from conjuring images of heavenly repose, the church is more akin to a giant concrete tent, hence its local nickname ‘Paddy’s Wigwam’ (Paddy being pejorative for Catholics of Irish descent).”
A photo of the cathedral carries the caption “What you might get if Optimus Prime was your architect.”
Its inclusion alongside bleak communist architecture, an imposing Vietnamese mausoleum, and a North Korean pyramid has ruffled feathers at the 44-year-old cathedral.
Cathedral dean Anthony O’Brien said: “I would guess it’s somebody that’s never been inside.
“Externally a lot of people who have not been see its harsh concrete, but internally there’s a real sense of peace and light and it’s very spiritual.”
He added: “I was there as a youngster at the time that it opened, and the concrete interior was much barer than it is now. I think what we have got is a modern design of its time which I think serves the celebrations and liturgy of our time.”
Dean O’Brien conceded that the cathedral has not always found favour in Liverpool, however.
He said: “It did make people stop in their tracks and think.
“But now I think we have grown. We have come to love it. Ultimately, the cathedral is meant to be a symbol of God’s presence.
“It needs to work. It needs to serve the uses we put it to and it does that very well.”
He added: “We don’t get worked-up by these things because we have had this for 40-odd years now.”
The Roman Catholic Cathedral is the work of British architect Sir Frederick Gibberd.
It is the seat of the Archbishop of Liverpool Patrick Kelly, spiritual leader of the Northern Province of the Catholic Church in England.
Maintaining the cathedral costs more than £2,000 a day in voluntary donations.
The first building on CNN’s list is the unfinished Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea.
Construction of the 330-metre pyramid began in the 1980s, and is yet to be completed.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/in-the-mix/2012/01/14/liverpool-metropolitan-cathedral-named-one-of-world-s-ugliest-buildings-by-cnn-vote-100252-30121805/

Read the comments

Peel Groups Property Arm Loses £18.3 million in 2011.

2012-01-13T13:33:00.000Z

By Mike Fahy - Assistant Editor, Business Desk:

PEEL Group's Land & Property arm declared a pre-tax loss of £18.3m in the year to March 31, 2011 as its turnover climbed by 4% to £97.7m.
The business, whose main focus is developing property asserts held at docks in Liverpool and Glasgow, as well as its proposed Atlantic Gateway scheme, declared an operating profit of £55.3m (2010: £58.4m), but higher interests payments of £79.7m (£66m) pushed it into the red as it completed a refinancing of its debts.
A £200m debenture was increased to £250m in April 2010, and at the year end two loans worth a combined £182m were replaced by a new 20-year, £205m facility. The refinancings incurred one-off charges of £12.3m.
The company saw its rent roll drop by £2.6m to £64.3m during the year, which it said was due to the sale of properties in Blackburn and Glasgow. The properties brought in rent of almost £3.8m a year.
In total, it sold off land worth £18.6m during the period and made a profit of £5m on disposals. These included sites at Princes Dock in Liverpool, Speke Leisure Park, Astley Business Park in Wigan and at James Watt Dock at Greenock in Scotland.
The firm said that it currently has around 700,000 sq ft of property standing empty (2010: 893,000 sq ft) which has an estimated rental value of £4m a year (£5.9m).
However, it added that half of this is industrial property around its docklands holdings in Liverpool and Glasgow, which is being held for redevelopment purposes.
In total, the company controls more than 200,000 acres of land and held net assets of £640bn at its year end, down from £666.4bn in the prior year.
Peel's Land & Property division is currently progressing with both its its Wirral Waters and Liverpool Waters schemes, which it described as "the largest private-led regeneration projects in the country". It is also moving forward with plans for its £50bn Ocean Gateway scheme, which will see a series of new developments including new ports between Manchester and Liverpool.
Outline planning approval for Wirral Waters was achieved during the financial year, and since its year end it has also gained the green light for the first phase of investment - a £175m International Trade Centre. The Liverpool Waters element remains mired in in a dispute with heritage organisations, which has seen UNESCO threaten to revoke Liverpool's World Heritage status if plans were developed in their proposed form.
The company's accounts also show that after a period during which the value of its land bank had remained flat, "the market has increasingly shown evidence of the return of residential activity and as the year has progressed housebuilders have begun to emerge and prepare for business.

Since the year end, Peel has agreed a joint venture with housebuilder Barratt to develop 1,000 homes on Peel-owned land. The partnership has already gained planning for a 268-house development close to Liverpool John Lennon Airport in Speke, on which work is due to start on site shortly.

So Where is the money going to come from for all these ambitious projects?

So why cant the Daily Ghost (now deceased, soon to become the weekly Ghost) find this out.............no wonder they have had to close down, if I can find this out why cant they.
Maybe they will now copy this down and think twice before the project Glass Pie In The Sky projects on to the public.

No More Tall Ship Events For Liverpool. Wellington Dock to be filled in.

2012-01-12T11:42:00.000Z

This is the projection for the plans to go ahead for Wellington Dock Waste Treatment Plant.
courtesy of the Daily Ghost
This is a World Heritage Site. The plans were passed despite a report from Unesco pending.
A separate presentation was made to Ron Van Ours and Patricia Alberth on the recent monitoring mission. The plans were passed and it was said by Mark Loughran the acting planning manager that Ron Van Oers said it was alright. What!!!!!!!!! Why did they not wait for the report then.
What he never said being the council poodle that he is, is, that if these plans were to go ahead we will no facility for the Tall Ships Events of the future as this is the only Dock that will take the depth of the larger ships.
Really clever this, proclaiming your future is in tourism because Peel Holdings want the Docks moved to Salford and you fill in your best asset.
John Sutton of the Daily Ghost is too ill informed as he is only a junior to know the significance of this in his.....errrm, well could you really call it reporting. But the editor should know as Peter Elson has published the fact in the paper. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news//tm_headline=new-163-200m-river-mersey-waste-treatment-plant-to-create-350-jobs%26method=full%26objectid=30105478%26siteid=100252-name_page.html
So just when you think you are getting somewhere and creating a debate they throw a red herring in and it will go unnoticed as this is in a restricted zone...by Peel Holdings.
This story was made into a good news story stating it will create hundreds of jobs. How many will it lose in the long term?
Liverpool The City that knocked down the Cavern Club and then called itself Beatles City then it becomes a Mercantile and Maritime World Heritage Site and fills in the only dock that can take a proper Tall Ships Event. http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2008/07/16/tall_ships_map_feature.shtml

You couldn't make this up.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/10/wellington-dock-to-be-filled-in-is.html

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/CABE/Design-Review/1/Liverpool-Waste-Water-Treatment-Extension-at-Wellington-Dock/

Peel Holdings submit a planning application for a Cruise Liner Terminal in the Liverpool Waters Scheme.

2012-01-09T14:35:00.000Z

So while Joe Anderson the Council leader is supporting the scheme for Liverpool Waters he is also openly supporting a Cruise Liner Terminal that Peel Holdings want to build..........that is a conflict of interests against the City's own Cruise Liner facility that is largely redundant and not fit for purpose.
Joe Anderson is openly supporting, saving the Cruise Liner operation, after the debacle where the Liverpool City Council cocked up the whole legal process of obtaining a going concern, for the city, by not having the ability to start and finish Ocean Cruise's from the Pier Head berthing, because European grant aid was used and this is in contravention to all EU competition laws.

Joe Anderson with his usual playground bully tactics then picked a fight, wrongly blaming Southampton, for blocking it when it is due legal process that stops it not another port. Imagine if European funding was used to build a car plant in North Wales that directly affected car plant assembly workers at Halewood.
This is what European laws are meant to stop from happening. If you have a city council who are dim enough not to understand this then the outcome is "A Cruise Liner Cock up" where it turns into a Navy jetty, instead of a usable facility.
So we put forward an idea to the local press to start a campaign in the Daily Post.
To campaign to Save Our Cruise Capacity, and this was taken up with great gusto by Peter Elson the local shipping correspondent.
Despite some terrible reportage by some at the paper, Peter has done quite well.............but he has not used all the facts. Wayne told him years ago that Peel Holdings who have the baggage handling and Customs facility at Langton Dock are set to undermine it all by building their own Cruise Liner Facility, and potentially making ours, that we paid, for out of public funds, redundant.

So here is the application and the genie is now well and truly out of the bottle. Not only do they want to build a new cruise liner facility, but a new city centre, no wonder Grosvenor, who own Liverpool One (Grosvenor-pool) are worried.
Building right over Trafalager Dock that was filled in with the rubble from Chavasse Park, ironicly.
Its about time that the Daily Post and Echo started telling the public as to exactly what is taking place and stopped the smoking mirrors.
One of the people who had great concern, about this matter, above and beyond the call of duty, was of course Peter Elson, who has now been pushed out by a dying regime who we cant trust with the truth.
This is most unfortunate and a detriment to anyone involved with Maritime heritage in the city. They could always rely on Peter to be first on board.
Southampton have requested that the European money is paid back by Peel Holdings the Port Authority..............but they will not do this while planning to build a Cruise Liner facility of their own, and of course they have the customs facility on their land that they wont give up.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/06/cruising-from-liverpools-langton-dock.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/03/cruise-from-liverpool.html
This is what we wrote, some time ago.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/03/cruise-from-liverpool.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/12/liverpools-cruise-liner-cock-up-its.html

This is what we wrote in 2009
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/09/cruise-wars-scouse-wedding-at-sea.html

Oh and this
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/09/cruise-control-naval-warfare-breaks-out.html
and this
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/07/council-cruise-liner-cock-up.html

A World Heritage Site Is For Life, Not Just For Christmas.

2011-12-22T16:18:00.000Z

Awaiting a Unesco report, The Spivs running the city must be nervous.
Like good little Peel's Poodle's they have gone headlong into a Cultural Back Alley on their behalf.
It shows up, what the likes of Joe Anderson, with his property speculators moll Frank McKenna, and his friends at Downtown Liverpool, who as representative for what Private Eye's 'Piloti' calls "the sinister Peel Holdings" really want, a free run on our heritage.
Through all the binge build years we have now woken up with a hangover.
And they still want more.
We dont have a planning officer anymore..........how convenient.
Councillor Malcolm Kennedy, Cabinet Member for Regeneration, who despite being in the paper everyday, has regenerated.......well a road for Peel Holdings, using up nearly all the road repair budget for the year in the process.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/12/06/dock-road-in-liverpool-given-new-lease-of-life-after-1m-resurfacing-92534-29901116/
Really don't Peel have to spend any money?
Do we have to fund their business dealings?
Is Joe Anderson too close to Peel Holdings?
Will John Hinchliffe the World Heritage Bungler be sacked?
Will The Cruise Liner Jetty balls up, be settled and will they, wrongly, stop blaming Southampton for it?
Will the local editors Alastair Machray and Mark Thomas be sacked?
Instead of them blaming everyone else for the lack of job creation, while sacking half the workforce at Trinity "Smoking" Mirror Group and shipping out the printing presses to Oldham. They should hide their heads in shame.

These are just a few of the searching questions that will be continued to be asked in the New Year.

We wish all our colleagues, friends and fellows who are interested in solving the problems that a city corrupted and poisoned by the spivs lurking behind the scenes create, A very Merry Xmas.

If we have upset you during the last year............well tough, you must have deserved it.

Museum of Liverpool-Winner Of The Hugh Casson Award 2011-For Being a Spectacular Botch Up...

2011-12-21T11:29:00.000Z

'Piloti' of Private Eye the satirical magazine has for a long time taken an interest in Liverpool. This current issue no 1304 is no exception.

Writing in Nooks and Corners he awards the worst building of 2011 to The Museum of Liverpool.

They told us it was going to be Iconic......and it is, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. click on the picture to expand the article. The squashed ciggy packet has been a complete disaster coming second in BD mags Carbuncle Cup award 2011. They promised us Iconic and give us Ichronic. All this while the now defunct Daily Ghost was telling us how wonderful it was going to be and how it will give life to the Pier Head. Funny that I was down there the other day playing spot the punter, we had to give up for lack of people. Lies, Lies and even more lies they have spun us those ill educated councillors past and present who sold the city out to.....well not even the highest bidder.

Mistakes 'Piloti' mentions a few as did numerous other publications.

We told them they were building a carbuncle, did the corrupted council officials, with their ill defined aesthetics listen, not a chance.

Spooned by Liverpool Vision with its links to the Chamber of Commerce, they, who should have known better, sold us downstream, to a bunch of carpet-bagging Vultures, right under the noses of the lazy public of Liverpool and the Local Press with its bad editors and their business section, Plumping out the true facts, who let their historic skyline be destroyed. English Heritage let it happen while the then Chairman Sir Neil Cossons was working for Liverpool Museums.

A lorra, lorra gaffes alright.......that we have to put up with for the rest of our lives.

Oh and its happening all over again with Peel Holdings who 'Piloti' calls ".....the sinister Peel Holdings"

St Andrews Church Sold To A Convicted Fraudster For A Quid!!!!

2011-12-16T11:46:00.000Z

Liverpool council have agreed to sell the Grade II-listed St Andrews Church, in Rodney Street, to Nigel Russell’s construction arm, Middle England Developments, for £1. Marc Waddington wrote, for the Daily Post which it says understands some council officers were aware of Mr Russell’s convictions in the USA – which saw him stripped of his right to deal in real estate in South Carolina – but had not informed senior directors until after the deal had been recommended.

Mr Russell said his conviction was “in the past” and he didn’t wish to discuss it. The council’s own rules state that “when determining whether or not the applicant is fit and proper, the council must have regard to certain offences relating to fraud, sexual offences and contraventions of housing or landlord and tenant law”.

Opposition leaders have also raised concerns about claims allegedly being made to investors about Penlake’s operations in the city.

Under the arrangement, investors pay a lump sum of around £48,000 per unit and are guaranteed a £6,000 return in the first year only.
Read the full story here. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/12/14/secret-prison-past-of-liverpool-property-developer-92534-29949224/

Are Liverpool City Council Corrupt?
That is a question I was asked the other day.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/08/st-andrews-church-rodney-street-call.html

Despite promises from Joe "You're Scum" Anderson to protect our heritage, he then gives St Andrews Church away to a convicted fraudster.
Are the company, that paid the quid, members of the Spiv Lobby Group Downtown Liverpool is another question I was asked the other day.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/06/joe-anderson-to-save-liverpools.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/st-andrews-church-rodney-st-liverpools.html
This post has the history of the church.

This post may or may not contain the history of the deal.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/11/joe-anderson-sitting-far-too-close-to.html
Or even this one.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/06/frank-mckenna-suckles-at-breast-of-joe.html

Well done to Marc Waddington who shows himself as a ray of light in a room of Trinity "smoking" Mirrors here http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-frank-mckenna-really-editing.html
There is hope at the Ghost yet.

Joe Anderson-"You're Scum".

2011-12-15T12:24:00.000Z

Spot the scum as Uncle Joe Anderson, our Council leader, pops into the Echo Arena for a Jolly day out, shouting at people outside "You're Scum.

It seems to me that he should have considered this term when representing the council.

The Council are currentlty dealing with convicted fraudsters.

Marc Waddington, Yesteday, did a fantastic expose on how St Andrews Church has been sold to a "Cosy" Council developer for a quid.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/12/14/secret-prison-past-of-liverpool-property-developer-92534-29949224/

This is what one of our preffered bloggers (If he does not get comprimised) says on the matter.

http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2011/12/letting-real-scum-off-hook.html

In a post he calls letting the real scum off the hook.

Joe Anderson seems to be appearing on video rather often of recent days David Bartlett has a rather interesting video on his blog, of Joe Anderson at Downtown Liverpool (Frank McKenna) Christmas Party, at fellow Councillor Gary Millars place Parr Street Studios. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/09/councillor-gary-millar-set-to-make.html

It must be Xmas because a real Turkey pops its head up............Yes Its our Friend Derek Hatton, who while leading the council knocked a whole Georgian Quarter around Casey Street down.

You must watch it.

http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2011/11/joe-anderson-and-max-steinberg.html

Liverpool Preservation Trust Blog-Now Being Administered By David Ward.

2011-12-14T13:05:00.001Z

David Ward is now the administrator of the LPT blog.

Neil Scales Buggers Off To Australia-Good Riddance.

2011-12-14T10:51:00.001Z

SPOT THE DIPSTICK.

After wasting a fortune of our money Herr Director of Miserytravel buggers off to Australia leaving a trail of financial disasters behind him.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-did-merseytravel-spend-42-million.html
Miserytravel under his control cut up the historic U-534 that was rescued from the bottom of a Fford. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/06/u-534-cut-up-into-five-pieces-by-neil.html

Let loose with our money Miserytravel commissioned the Ken Dodd with a Kebab at Lime Street station.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/07/liverpool-european-capital-ofbad.html

Miserytravel even bought Ringos house
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-does-merseytravel-own-ringos-house.html

He spent £67,000,000 of your money on a folly that will never make any cash.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/neil-scales-and-merseytravel-spend.html

Used to getting his own way and spending taxpayers money he tried to gag us.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/merseytravel-try-to-gag-us-we-will-not.html

Good Riddance Mr Scales You Will Not Be Missed. All the money you wasted on your ill concieved ideas, really, could have kept quite a few Nursing Homes open.

St Andrews Church-Should Liverpool City Council Be In Charge Of Our History?

2011-12-12T13:06:00.000Z

Months ago I wrote of the risks to letting Liverpool City Council look after our historic past.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/08/st-andrews-church-rodney-street-call.html

I have watched as St Andrews Church has been left to decay to a shell of its former state while we are told about Regeneration... by the Council Con Merchants, who keep telling us how well we are all doing from their leadership, when in reality, and in my opinion, the whole system is corrupted.

Two years ago I asked questions about why the council had not issued proper repairs order on all the Buildings on the English Heretics at risk register.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/st-andrews-church-rodney-st-liverpools.html

I asked why they have put a shed on top of the Rodney Street building.

It now seems that they are trying to sell the building, or may have done so.
Will this historic building now be knocked out to some shady property developer turned into flats or even touted as a timeshare.
We are making enquiries. Watch this space.

White Star Building Hit By Storms-James Street Closed.

2011-12-08T12:17:00.001Z

They spent a fortune on the "Three Black Coffins" at Mann Island while The White Star Building on the corner of James Street and the Strand lies rotting waiting for it to fall down so the site can be developed. Today it has happened with parts of the building falling off.

Built by Norman Shaw to a similar design of Scotland Yard with bands of brick and white Portland stone it is historic if not only for being the place that all families gathered when the Titanic sank, being the company headquarters.

We warned of this years ago.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/06/mann-island-tale-of-two-cities.html

Call This Regeneration, or maybe a tale of two cities.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/04/mann-island-bail-out.html

It seems there is money to trash the world heritage site, but none to maintain our historic buildings.

Save Liverpool's World Heritage Site-From Liverpol City Council and its "Cosy" Developer Friends, Peel Holdings.

2011-12-06T12:32:00.000Z

As part of our aim to highlight the real threat to Liverpool's World Heritage Site from the very people who should be protecting it.
The City Council, I took part in a feature for the ONE SHOW on BBC 1 Friday last th2 2nd December 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b017t724/?t=2m26s It is 2 min 25 seconds into the programme.
Cue Paul Brant the council spokesman, with more Liver Building myths.
Surely he, being a legal minded person can understand that there is no argument for any controversy when they built the Liver Buildings, it just suits him to denigrate the Icon of the city.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/08/liver-building-denigration-by-liverpool.html

The BBC unfortunately fall for it every time.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/07/liver-building-lies-propagated-by-bbc.html

Brant was furnished one comment made by the owners of the Port of Liverpool Buildings (Liver Buildings competitors at the time) supplied by, opinion for hire Peter de Figueiredo. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/09/peter-de-figueiredo-opinion-for-hire.html
Who was the Historic Buildings advisor for English Heritage when Liverpool Vision put the idea for the "Three Black Coffins" at the Pier Head forward? That Councillor Paul Brant apparently objected to?

Peter de Figueiredo is now secretly working for Peel Holdings.
Just how many of Liverpool City Council are too?

SAVE LIVERPOOL'S WORLD HERITAGE SITE-From The Local Spiv Lobby.

2011-12-05T12:20:00.000Z

You chip away trying to put an argument forward showing what we will lose if World Heritage Site Status is removed.
But it is always being undermined by the local media with their close links to developers and their misguided principles.
The Spiv lobby, partly made up of previous redundo's and outcasts who now hawk their wares around the local reporting media seem to get their way far too often.
Take Mark Thomas............please,will someone take the editor of the Daily Post, and explain to him some principles.
My opinion is that he has been tainted and having had such a hard time, he thinks if he hides below the water line and administer the sackings nobody will notice.
Whilst claiming in writing, in the paper that we as campaigners are costing jobs he slashes them on behalf of his employers who shipped out all the printing presses to Oldham.
Some people need to take a hard look at themselves.
Today's opinion goes on about creating jobs by giving Peel Holdings planning permission to trash the World Heritage Site, while he is the grim reaper at the Daily Post dishing out redundancy money to anyone who will take it.

I spoke to David Bartlett Thursday last and advised him of a threat to London and he first said we cant do anything about this. Then he phoned me back and said " Oh yes we can now" I knew it was going to be a stitch up job at Editor level. Davids piece was alright.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news//tm_headline=liverpool-joined-by-london-in-world-heritage-status-battle%26method=full%26objectid=29893807%26siteid=100252-name_page.html

so it is a case of keeping the local press informed, but I think that is about it now.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/12/05/london-landmarks-palace-of-westminster-and-tower-of-london-now-under-unesco-world-heritage-spotlight-after-liverpool-visit-92534-29893809/

But the extremists at the Daily Ghost lead me to think that they are in on all this and the local media are far too close to the developers and local groups of Spivs such as Downtown Liverpool who Joe Anderson is far too close to also.

Today's Daily Ghost opinion is another desperate attempt for the editor to curry favour with his mates.....in my opinion. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/liverpool-daily-post/2011/12/05/heritage-lobby-is-trying-too-hard-92534-29894106/

Have the heritage lobby perhaps not fully appreciated the extraordinary impact of the ongoing recession?

Do they somehow think we would be willing to sacrifice jobs and investment because they say we should? They say in today's Opinion.

Has the editor of the Daily Ghost not realised that some of us run businesses in the cultural sector and have aesthetic values and have realised that the trashing of the Pier Head may have created a small number of jobs but the cultural sacrifice is far too great.

While this editor has been employed the world heritage site has been trashed.

Why is he trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public?
Just look at the state of Mann Island against what was there before.
Mark Thomas seems intent on losing us the WHS status.

Wayne

Save The Liverpool World Heritage Site.

2011-12-02T11:19:00.000Z

Yes it has got to that stage now, those that have done the damage are now trying to manipulate the centre ground in the publicity stakes, using all the usual rubbish like cities need to evolve and move, they dont mention the carbuncles.http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/12/02/queen-and-duke-of-edinburgh-visit-the-new-museum-of-liverpool-and-royal-liver-building-92534-29880958/ Yesterday it was the Queen who visited the Carbuncle Museum, it was strange watching the black Hearse pass the "Three Black Coffins" at Mann Island.

Phil Redmond met the Queen, as Chairman of Liverpool Museums, oh and Mike McCartney.......isnt there anyone else. He mentions it in his column in the Daily Ghost (at least one reason for closing the paper down). http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/letters-to-editor/2011/12/02/phil-redmond-it-should-not-all-be-up-to-unesco-92534-29880882/
He says;
ONE of the greatest symbols of our shared heritage, the Monarchy, was on display this week with the Queen opening the Museum of Liverpool before going on to the Liver Buildings and then the Floral Pavilion on the Wirral.

Symbols of past, present and future but a reminder that our real World Heritage Status is simply the region’s shared past, present and future. We should neither rely on, nor be cavalier about, whatever the likes of Unesco think or decide, but we need a balanced view.
It can be no coincidence, even perhaps some comfort, to discover that London Tower is also in danger of joining Dresden in being “struck off”, because of the encroachment of modern development.
Perhaps the real issue, then, is that modern cities will always want to evolve and change, so should Unesco really be trying to classify city centres, no matter how worthy.

Strange that Phil who lives in Tarporly in leafy Cheshire told me pointing to the new museum and Mann Island, during a conversation I was having with Tristram Hunt who wrote an article on Liverpool for the Times. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/liverpool-capital-of-vandalism.html

"They should have built all this on the Wirral, but at least it will fall down in 50 years"

Further reading
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/03/phil-redmond-professional-scouser.html

Tower of London and Palace of Westminster could lose World Heritage Status

2011-12-01T12:35:00.000Z

Tower of London and Palace of Westminster could lose status

Inspectors from Unesco are to visit London next week to review the architectural status of the Tower of London and the Palace of Westminster.
Unesco is concerned about the impact of high-rise developments in the vicinity of the two attractions, including projects such as the Shard.

A report on the Tower of London produced by Unesco this year states that the World Heritage Committee “considers that the incremental developments around the Tower over the past five years have impacted adversely its visual integrity.”
Previous reports have called for a buffer zone to be put in place to protect the tower.
Similar concerns about the Palace of Westminster were also raised earlier this year. Unesco has called for a moratorium on new projects in the area until protection is introduced for the setting of the palace.

To think the Queen is at the New Museum today, that along with the Three Black Coffins carbunculates the Liverpool World Heritage Site.

The One Show, This Friday-Features, The Risk Of Liverpool Losing its World Heritage Site Status.

2011-11-30T15:56:00.000Z

Its always bloody freezing doing any filming connected with the Liverpool WHS wth most of it being in such an exposed and windy location.
But such is the importance of the cause of saving the Liverpool World Heritage Site, I have to do it.
We are grateful for the topical magazine "The OneShow" taking an interest in the risk of Liverpool losing its WHS status and it should go out on Friday.
Paul Brant the Deputy Leader of Liverpool City Council will be on, peddling the usual City Council untruths and derogatory remarks about there being controversy when the Liver Buildings were built, trying to substantiate the carbunculation of the Pier Head with unsubstantiated remarks. Another Labour Councillor wanting to let Peel Holdings lose Liverpool the coveted accolade that puts us up there with the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/08/liver-building-denigration-by-liverpool.html
Lets hope the BBC dont fall for this once again as they always seem to do.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/07/liver-building-lies-propagated-by-bbc.html

The reality is that this is the town that knocked down the Cavern Club and then called itself Beatles City.
This is the City that gets a Mercantile and Maritime World Heritage Site title that any other place would be proud of and then plans to build Shanghai-On-Mersey.

Jonathan Glancey on The Threat To Liverpool's World Heritage Site From Liverpool Waters.

2011-11-28T17:38:00.000Z

Mersey monotony? … an artist's impression of Peel Holding's Liverpool Waters scheme

"Life goes on day after day/Hearts torn in every way." You can just hear Gerry Marsden singing Ferry Cross the Mersey back when Liverpool was one of the world's best loved cities. Imagine if Ferry Cross the Mersey was remade in 2015 and, instead of the Liver Building, Pier Head and working docks, the backdrop was an almighty prickle of skyscrapers and other schlock shipped in from anywhere except Merseyside itself.
More than hearts may be torn if the city gives the go-ahead to the titanic and controversial £5.5bn Liverpool Waters project proposed by property developers Peel Holdings. Unesco is so angry with what its inspectors have seen of the designs that it has threatened – and not for the first time – to strip Liverpool's city centre of its World Heritage Site status. While in other parts of the world this would matter, Liverpool – to judge from comments made in the local media – doesn't appear to care what Unesco thinks.
What matters more than heritage, it seems, is shopping and new jobs in new shops. Liverpool is no museum: it wants a global skyscrapers and luxury brands. This is a little unfair, yet the city – architecturally a curate's egg (even around Giles Gilbert Scott's magisterial cathedral should aim a lot higher than the glossy banality of Liverpool Waters. A concern for local heritage proves just how innovative and memorable the city's architecture has been, whether in the design of the Three Graces, the Albert Docks or Freddie Gibberd's space capsule-style Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King. Why give up the ghost?
Meanwhile, and aside from a new generation of ultra-modern factories, shipyards, skilled jobs, schools and whatever local people suggest, what Liverpool needs is close attention to its housing stock and to its dilapidated inner suburbs.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/nov/25/constructive-criticism-week-in-architecture

Liverpool Skyscraper Plan Puts World Heritage Status At Risk.

2011-11-28T12:09:00.000Z

This is an article that was published in the Guardian.
Helen Carter who cobbled this together from other sources has not been to Liverpool for a while, if ever,because she has used a picture of a view that no longer exists, as it has been decimated by the "Three Black Coffins" and the new museum that looks like a Geometric Quilt. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/23/liverpool-world-heritage-status

Peel Holdings Object To A New Retail Park In Speke.

2011-11-25T11:19:00.000Z

A MAJOR £30m plan to build a vast leisure complex in Speke looks set for approval – despite strong opposition. John Siddle of the Daily Ghost writes,

New Mersey Leisure, featuring three hotels, a multiplex cinema, bars and restaurants, would be built on 14-acres of a 49-acre brownfield site near the New Mersey Retail Park, in Speke.

Developers Benmore Group anticipate the project would create 325 permanent jobs and pump £5.5m per year into the local economy.
But the scheme, listed for approval at Liverpool council’s planning committee on Tuesday, has met with concern from car manufacturer Ford and major developer Peel.
Ford sub-leases land on the proposed site from ANSA Logistics to store up to 4,000 vehicles transported there by the adjacent freight rail network.
In a letter of objection backed by the union Unite, Ford said the jobs of 188 workers linked to the site could be jeopardised if the scheme is progressed.
Through solicitors Cushman and Wakefield, the firm told the council: “Ford has categorically established that there is no other suitable affordable rail-connected site that is able to support the current operation locally.
Closure of this site as a distribution centre for Ford would result in a move away from the North West for this operations and the loss to the area of skilled employment as a result.”

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/11/24/30m-speke-leisure-park-plan-set-for-green-light-despite-objectors-concerns-92534-29831646/
Benmore, which owns the freehold to the land, claims it would create a “substantial area of land” for car storage at the former Tea Factory, off Speke Hall Road.
An eight-page letter, submitted by Peel, claimed that the proposals would not aid regional growth.
The Port of Liverpool owner feared the “diminished ability” to make best use of the “rare rail freight connection” and insisted there was no legitimate demand for three hotels.
Its objection states: “The New Mersey proposals represent economic development but not sustainable economic growth. On the contrary, they will frustrate the realisation of expanded rail-freight use in the city, which should have negative regional-wide implications.”
A spokesman for Benmore said that access to the rail network “would not be affected”.
Benmore, also behind plans to redevelop the former Pioneer Buildings in Dale Street into a 120-bed hotel and car park, hopes to win full planning permission to build a seven-screen cinema, 18 leisure units and a 78-bed hotel.
It also wants outline planning permission for 78-bed and 120-bed hotels. If permission is granted, the park could open by the end of next year.

So despite Peel Holdings plan to close down the docks and carbunculate it with.............thousands of appartments that no-one will buy and they then complain about an overs supply of hotels, you couldnt make this up.

STOP PRESS-Liverpool Daily Post is now the Daily Ghost.

2011-11-24T15:18:00.000Z

It all started when they shipped out the printing presses to Oldham.
Barging Liverpool jobs out of the city down the Manchester Ship Canal.

Alastair Machray has let a lot of people go, some skilled and with the experience of decades of writing, with a knowledge of the locality that would be hard to replace.
They local press are now helping drum up a campaign to create Liverpool jobs by building Liverpool Waters.
And thus losing the World Heritage Site.
All this empty rhetoric after Peel Holdings are building Port Salford....and barging jobs down the Mersey, right under the noses of the local press.
While this current editorial team have been employed, they have cheered and supported every tacky scheme to carbunculate the World Heritage Site, while lunching with the press officers of the companies that were telling them, its all gonna be Ichonic.
Lets hope this switch to a weekly makes them think long and hard about the need to bring a bit of class into the local debate instead of the usual uninformed dullard approach and plumping for the council.
I don't like to see anyone lose their job, and have excellent relations with quite a number of employees, of the Post and Echo, but those who have been hiding behind the Trinity "Smoking" Mirrors at Oldham Hall Street should now look at the way they are viewed by the public and realise, what if nobody buys the Liverpool Weekly that will replace the Daily Post. Then it really will be the Daily Ghost.

Liverpool Waters, Wirral Waters, and now Chatham Waters.

2011-11-24T13:43:00.000Z

Development giant Peel Land & Property has lodged outline plans for its £650 million mixed-use Chatham Waters scheme in Kent designed by 5 Plus Architects

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/peel-submits-another-monster-waterside-scheme/8621868.article
Richard Waite writes:

The 10ha scheme on brownfield land at Chatham Docks is the latest behemoth waterside scheme to be submitted by the development company which is already working on the £5.5billion Liverpool Waters with Chapman Taylor and the nearby 1.4 million m² Wirral Waters scheme
Drawn up with Indigo Planning and Planit ie, the 176,000m² project includes a commercial heart incorporating office space, education facilities, a hotel, flats, townhouses, new public areas and a food store.
James Whittaker, development director at Peel said: ‘The feedback we received at the public consultation was invaluable and we are very pleased that so many people [90 per cent of those questioned] were supportive of our plans for Chatham Waters. We have taken the comments received on board and are pleased to have submitted a planning application to Medway Council.’

They said the same about Liverpool Waters when they put a few boards out in a shop in the city centre.

Should Mark Thomas The Editor Of The Daily Post, Be Thatched?

2011-11-23T11:55:00.000Z

What do they want us to do?

Thatch some of the skyscrapers, perhaps?

Just when you think you are getting somewhere with an argument it gets the Daily Post Editors treatment, and decends into the same old usual chip paper rubbish.
I had thanked the paper for the balanced debate that has been afforded to the Unesco Mission, but yesterday the true colours of the editorial stance show. The "Daily Post says"
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/liverpool-daily-post/2011/11/22/is-heritage-worth-a-major-sacrifice-92534-29817490/
Will this dullard approach from the local editor, it is no wonder that the Pier Head has been decimated.Their true colours shine through really. It is they that live in the past not us.

If they think that losing your best asset, world heritage, status by becoming one of Peels Poodles is the future then they are wrong.
OUR HISTORY IF PROPERLY MANAGED IS OUR FUTURE. We are not living in the past we are looking to the future, it is the dullards who cant see further than their own concieted views, that are twisted by the circle in which they move, that need thatching.
To have an uneducated approach to such an important matter really does not help the argument it aims at the lowest denominator present in the city.

David Bartlett had been, I feel, doing his best to keep this important news item on the straight and narrow.
He did not write the opinion. Once again I thank David Bartlett for his hardworking coverage, but as for the editor, Mark, you need to go and take a long hard look in the mirror and wait for the smoke to clear, then tell us what you see..........bloody 'ell it's Frank McKenna.

Peel Ports Set To Dredge The Mersey-Even Bill Gleeson says They Have Missed The Boat.

2011-11-22T11:17:00.000Z

Delays may mean city has missed the boat

NEWS this week that Peel Ports has secured grant funding to deepen the River Mersey, around Seaforth, by dredging, has been greeted with considerable excitement locally.

The £30m Regional Growth Fund grant is an important piece in the jigsaw that should allow Peel’s proposed £200m in-river quayside to proceed. Once complete, the new quayside will be able to handle some of the world’s largest vessels. Known as post-Panamax vessels, these ships will be able to pass through the Panama Canal after it has been widened. The opening up of the canal will re-shape trade flows between East and West.
For many decades, the idea that Liverpool is on the wrong side of the country has been widely accepted as a truism. East coast ports have claimed the lion’s share of trade heading to Rotterdam and other near European ports. When it comes to post-Panamax vessels, however, Liverpool’s location is not so disadvantageous. These massive vessels don’t serve Europe, but instead plough the seas between Britain and the Far East. The announcement that Liverpool was to build a post-Panamax quayside was, for example, big news in Hong Kong.
In this day and age of low carbon targets, long- distance shippers will be interested in Liverpool’s proximity to the final marketplace. The fact Liverpool is in central Britain, close to big centres of population, should stand us in better stead than ports on the south coast.
On the other hand, Peel has been slow off the mark when it comes to competing with their rivals. Had the company stuck to the original construction plan, the new in-river terminal would be open for business by now. It was, however, delayed due to the credit crunch and the downturn in international trade.
While the scheme is now back on track, the delays mean that the Port of Liverpool has missed the boat.
Bristol’s port has permission to build a new £600m deep sea container terminal which, the port owner claims, will bring containers closer to their final destinations than any other super post- Panamax port.
Last month, Felixstowe South opened for business, offering a similar scale, two-berth facility as that proposed for Seaforth. Dredging of the Thames Estuary to allow post-Panamax vessels to dock at the soon to be opened London Gateway began two years ago. When the new DP World quaysides are ready, they will be able to handle more container traffic than the whole of the Port of Liverpool even after its new Seaforth facility is fully utilised.
The Port of Southampton has long been able to handle post-Panamax vessels, and recently expanded its capacity by 50%. Vessels that are already bigger than those that would use Liverpool’s new in-river facility have been docking routinely at Southampton for a couple of years now.
Indeed, Liverpool has just become a feeder port to the Port of Southampton with a regular weekly service that allows global shippers to transfer containers from post- Panamax sized ships docking at Southampton to smaller vessels that then come into the Mersey. If this feeder port status is to be just a temporary phenomenon, it is important that there are no more delays to construction at Seaforth.
One inherent anxiety created by the receipt of a £30m-plus Regional Growth Fund grant has to be the potential it creates for objections to be raised by rival port owners, such as DP World at Southampton, which is already engaged in a fierce war of words over the funding of Liverpool’s cruise liner terminal plan
Read More http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/ldpbusiness/business-local/2011/11/16/delays-may-mean-city-has-missed-the-boat-92534-29783585/

My understanding is that Peel Ports were annoyed at the timing of this news with the Unesco mission in Liverpool and them promising us jobs galore.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/11/15/liverpoool-210m-river-mersey-terminal-to-go-ahead-after-dredging-permission-given-92534-29777562/

Meanwhile more jobs go at the Port of Liverpool
This time its the Fruit and Produce Terminal that Peel own.......42 jobs to go.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/ldpbusiness/business-local/2011/11/22/liverpool-produce-terminal-closes-with-loss-of-42-jobs-100252-29816690/ click here for more

Just what is the Isle of Man tax exile John Whittaker, who owns Peel Holdings, doing with our jobs shipping our Port down the Manchester Ship Canal to Salford.

Do Peel Holdings Have The Money To Develop Liverpool Waters?

2011-11-21T13:03:00.000Z

That is a question that needs a long hard look at.

Would a Chinese investor even consider investing in the Euro-Zone at the moment knowing that the currency could, or may implode?

What is the Financial Gearing that Peel Holdings have at the Banks at present?

Would the Roschild's Invest in a company that wants to build tens of thousands of appartments on Liverpool Waters when the same company (or subsiduary) has plans passed on Wirral Waters for ten thousand appartments?

Who is going to live in them all?

We congratulated Peel for wanting to develop Wirral (not a stone been laid yet).
But its not a World Heritage Site.

Is this just a planning permission exersice so that John Whittaker the tax exile living in the Isle Of Man, who owns 60% of Peel, can top up his pension pot?

In order to get the level of Chinese cash out of the country, when China feels threatened by the global economic downturn, to invest in Liverpool Waters, you need a lot of power, Peel may think themselves powerful, but they are not that big.

In the meantime we have a City Council under the stewardship of Joe Anderson, (who is far too close to Peel Holdings), that needs to stop and take a look at the full gravity of the situation, instead of spinning another one just like the other one.........because we no longer believe you understand what you are doing with Our World Heritage, Mr Anderson.

Unesco is like a lumbering Elephant, but when they fall on you you get squashed.

Imagine the embarrasment of losing the World Heritage Site?

John Hinchliffe and a £6,000 Freebie.

2011-11-18T15:52:00.000Z

A free trip to Shanghai that you helped pay for so you should know about it.
That cost Six Grand.
What for? Why did he have to go?
Was it to persuade any investors in Liverpool Waters, they could do whatever they want while he's there.
He even bragged about it. "Not bad for a freebie" he said.
Flown out all expenses paid for to have meetings with Peel Holdings to the Shanghai Expo 2010.......who have been told by Unesco that if their plans for Shanghai-on-Mersey where to go ahead it will effect the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage Site.
This is what Unesco actually said that the current plans for Liverpool Waters goes directly in conflict against the SPD. What does Hinchiffe do?

118. Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City (United Kingdom) (C 1150)
Decision: 35 COM 7B.118

The World Heritage Committee,
1. Having examined Document WHC-11/35.COM/7B.Add,
2. Expresses its extreme concern at the proposed development of Liverpool Waters in terms of the potential impact of its dense, high and mid-rise buildings on the form and design of the historic docks and thus on the Outstanding Universal Value of the property;
3. Notes that the independent Impact Assessment commissioned by English Heritage clearly sets out the significantly damaging negative impact on the Outstanding Universal Value of the property;
Decisions report WHC-11/35.COM/20, p. 150
4. Also notes that the proposed development is not in compliance with the property
Management Plan nor with the Liverpool Urban Development Plan;
5. Urges the State Party to ensure that these proposals are not approved, as failure to do so could lead to consideration of loss of the Outstanding Universal Value of the property;
6. Requests the State Party to invite a joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS reactive monitoring mission, as soon as possible, to assess planning procedures and the overall development strategies for the property;
7. Also requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2012, an updated report on the state of conservation of the property and on the implementation of the above, examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 36th session in 2012.

http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2011/whc11-35com-20e.pdf

So what do we pay him for, because he has done nothing to protect world heritage principles or, as Unesco, expressly requested, put an education programme together to inform the public and developers as to principles of World Heritage, to uphold its protection.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/10/dear-john-mr-hinchliffe-you-are-trying.html
The Heritage lottery Funding was refused because they said he was trying it on. click on links

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/06/liverpools-world-heritage-education-nil.html

For 5 years hes been swopping the place where the pen goes for the place where the pencil goes on his desk shuffling paper around....doing nothing, a complete and utter waste of time.
Secretly steering the World Heritage Steering Group that nobody knows about, apart from them.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/10/liverpool-world-heritage-steering-group.html
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/10/world-heritage-steering-group-what.html
click on links

He is now worried after Nigel Lee the planning officer has been forced out. (Liverpool does not have a Chief Planning Officer). So who is upholding the Supplementary Planning Document that is to protect the WHS.
So lets break it down here is the SPD, its a long read but Unesco will do the work, I am sure. http://liverpool.gov.uk/Images/SPDWorldHeritageSite.pdf
Anyone commenting on Liverpools WHS needs to read this and that includes the local press.
http://liverpool.gov.uk/Images/SPDWorldHeritageSiteSustainabilityAppraisal.pdf
Here is the sustainability section of the SPD.
http://liverpool.gov.uk/Images/SPDWorldHeritageSiteStatementCommunityInvolve.pdf

Hinchliffe the double dealing waste of space that is supposed to be employed to protect World Heritage not roll over like a fluffy poodle, and have his belly tickled by any Spiv or Speculator that wants to build anything in the World Heritage Site.

He should be very worried about his job because if Unesco go against him this time he wont be able to afford a collection of Della Robbia ceramics that he aspires to, because we will be calling for the hopeless waste of space's sacking and he may be lucky to keep his job.

A Waste Of Space sitting on his hands?
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/02/john-hinchliffe-liverpools-world.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/03/liverpools-world-heritage-site-pearls.html
Meanwhile Its Pearls before Swine as Usual
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/10/frank-mckenna-representing-peel.html

John Hinchliffe Tries To Shaft Us.

2011-11-16T12:01:00.000Z

We predicted it was going to be a whitewash and that's what the World Heritage Officer tried.

We have it down in writing, how the meeting was to be formulated, but when we got there the double dealing Hinchliffe tried to direct us into a forum.
"You have had years to organise debates and you want one now today, there is not a chance"
Ian Wray of the world heritage steering group says "I am the chair"
"I am the table, I said, and I will not be going into any meeting being led by a council poodle"

I had already told Trevor Skempton and Peter Brown of the Civic Society, who do not have a remit on this matter, from the group, as this has not been a meeting to discuss it, I am reliably informed, that I would not be setting foot in any room with them.
David Swift stood his ground with me. Florence Gersten was already upstairs, she had been excluded from any meetings until we complained.
So Hinchliffe, who has sat shuffling paper for 5 years, now wants to turn into a negotiator.
"Not a chance" I told him "We are not being pushed around in a pram by you, like you did last time"
Hearing the noise and me throwing my arms around and telling Hinchliffe. "Not a chance, full stop you are not going to stifle what I have to say and we will only meet the inspectors privately"
Ron Van Oers who we met last time in the 2006 visit came over and said just as I said "That it I am going" waving my hands.
"Would you like a private meeting"..............."Yes"............"We will come down and see you shortly"

Hinchliffe said "Oh yes we have a spot ICOMOS UK have not turned up"
"Are there any reports on Liverpool Waters from ICOMOS UK", I asked him
"Errrr not sure, there may be", he waffled
"Of course the City Council joined them as a corporate member did they not"
"Err maybe"
So Hinchliffe, the double dealer had been telling all that the meeting was to be transparent, yet Peter de Figeuirido, the 'Opinion for hire' now working for Peel, was with the party at the Pier Head.
(He was the historic buildings advisor for English Heritage once, therefore a colleague of Henry Owen-John.
Owen John was there, as was Graham Ives "You probably has seen my name on various reports"
Yes far too many I thought I would not trust you as far as I could throw John Hinchliffe.

The mission came downstairs, and asked us some questions about who we represent, then we told them we don't recognise any steering group and cannot trust the MCS, and told them the reasons, we advised them that Hinchliffe is a total waste of space will do anything his paymasters tell him...........and that last time you were here.......Mr Van Oers.......... you let us down badly, I told him that he failed to grasp the gravity of the situation, when the Black Coffins were under planning, The City Council then under Warren Bradley promised to protect the World Heritage Site.
"If I remember rightly there were three, the Ferry Terminal the museum and Mann Island"
"You needed to be stronger and give advice, they are all carbuncles, if that's not affecting the Outstanding Universal Value then what is" I told him.
"We had to compromise English Heritage were in support of it"
"Yes but I told you their Chairman Sir Neil Cossons was working for the Liverpool Museums and they had promised him a steam train exhibition to curate, and Loyd Grossman the ex chair was he Museums Chair of NML"
He went on to give a long explanation and I looked at him along with Patricia Alberth and Mr Barbato who said nothing, and said
"You made a major mistake that we have to live with for ever, you got it badly wrong"
He was a bit shaken and said "Look I can assure you this time we will not be making any mistakes, this is very serious"
David Swift had handed them a print run of pictures of the Mann Island and Pier Head before and after, and there it was plain as day, architectural vandalism had occured.

Hinchliffe then came in and asked if we could finish the meeting as there was others waiting upstairs
"You have had 20 minutes"

He's so kind, the double dealing waste of space that is supposed to be employed to protect World Heritage not roll over like a fluffy poodle, and have his belly tickled by any Spiv or Speculator that wants to build anything in the World Heritage Site.

Todays paper sees Joe Anderson proclaiming we will protect our heritage.....look what we did to the Bluecoat...............knocked down Herbert Tyson Smiths Workshop, that was intact and created a plastic palace.............Warren Bradley, now Joe Anderson, Its Dumb and Dumber.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/11/16/joe-anderson-appeals-for-unesco-to-trust-liverpool-with-world-heritage-site-92534-29783939/

click on tabs below for more info

Unesco Inspectors in Liverpool This Week.

2011-11-15T12:10:00.000Z

An radio article by Nick Ravenscroft went out at 5 p.m on Radio 4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b0174dzw/ 44 minutes 50 seconds slide the bar across to listen to the well put together article.
Yesterday was a busy day with Unesco inspectors being in Liverpool.

Joe Anderson says a cerificate on the wall will not stop him developing the docks, now we get down to the real bottom of his thoughts, he spoke at as a keynote speaker at Downtown Liverpool event
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/10/frank-mckenna-representing-peel.html.
I informed the local press of these comments, but as yet they have not printed it.

BBC Northwest tonight did a fair old piece http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b0176nfw/ 5 minutes into the programme.

Granada reports did a very good take on the situation Rob Smith doing the reporting.
http://www.itv.com/granada/liverpool-heritage-worry93595/

Unesco Have Landed! Ready For The Liverpool City Council Smooze Assault.

2011-11-14T10:56:00.000Z

Last Fridays Independent carried an article by Andrew Rosthorn entitled;
Is Liverpool World Heritage status in ruins?
It is worth a read http://www.independent.co.uk/hei-fi/news/unesco-enters-fight-to-preserve-mersey-skyline-6260631.html?origin=internalSearch click on the links

Todays Daily Post sees David Bartlett keeping up on things happening regarding the mission.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/11/14/liverpool-launches-battle-to-save-city-s-world-heritage-status-92534-29770664/

The Daily Post Opinion does not come down either way http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/liverpool-daily-post/2011/11/14/unesco-officials-arrive-in-city-for-three-day-visit-as-liverpool-fights-to-save-world-heritage-status-92534-29769616/

David Bartlett prints: The list of people expected to meet the mission: Roll out all the usual supsects

http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2011/11/unesco-world-heritage-inspecto.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LiverpoolDailyPost-DaleStreetBlues+%28Liverpool+Daily+Post+-+Dale+Street+Blues%29
Liverpool City Council
Councillor Joe Anderson - leader of the Council
Councillor Malcolm Kennedy - Heritage Champion and Member for Regeneration and Transport
Councillor Wendy Simon - Member for Culture
Ged Fitzgerald - Chief Executive
Nick Kavanagh - Director of Regeneration
Mark Kitts - Assistant Executive Director
Mark Loughran - Development Control Manager
Peter Jones - Development Control Manager for Liverpool Waters
Rob Burns - Urban Design Manager
John Hinchliffe - World Heritage Officer
Keith Blundell - Tourism Manager
Steve Corbett - Conservation Manager
Chris Griffiths - Buildings at Risk Officer
Peter Hoey -Townscape Heritage Initiative Officer

English Heritage
Henry Owen-John - NW Regional Director
Graeme Ives - Historic Areas Advisor
Christopher Young - Head of World Heritage

Department for Culture Media and Sport
Paul Blaker - Head of World Heritage

World Heritage Site Steering Group
Ian Wray - Liverpool University and Chair
David Fleming - Director of National Museums Liverpool
Jenny Douglas - City Centre Development Manager, Liverpool Vision
John Belchem - Liverpool University
Maresa Molloy - Liverpool Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Peel Holdings
Lindsey Ashworth - Development Director
Ian Pollit - Development/Investment Surveyor
Peter de Figueiredo - Historic Building Consultant
Keith Nutter - Planner at White Young Green
Martin Bailey - Planner at White Young Green
Adrian Griffiths - Architect at Chapman Taylor
Peter Swift - Landscape Architect/Urban Designer at Planit IE

The Mersey Partnership
Rod Holmes - Chairman

Liverpool Vision
Max Steinberg - Chief Executive
Mike Taylor - Deputy Chief Executive
Ian McCarthy - North Liverpool Manager
Richard Tracey -N Liverpool Development Officer
Claire McColgan - Director of Culture
Graham Boxer - Head of Arts, Heritage and Participation

Liverpool Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Jack Stopforth - Chairman

Merseyside Civic Society
Peter Brown
Trevor Skempton

Liverpool Football Club
Ian Ayre - Managing Director
The Bluecoat
Alistair Upton - Director

Others

Robert Nadler - Director of Base2Stay
Steve Parry - Director of Neptune Developments
Chris Bliss - Managing Director of Liverpool One
Susan Dunn - ICOMOS UK

Wayne Colquhoun - Liverpool Preservation Trust
David Swift
FG- Florence Gersten - Save Our City

Where Is The Liverpool World Heritage Site?

2011-11-12T18:09:00.001Z

Well don't ask Damien, John Hinchliffe, The World Heritage Officer's press Officer.
I went to do a live show for Radio 5 live Drive after work, and he accompanied John Hinchliffe, for some strange reason?
They were warming themselves up for the live chat http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b016w0sp/ slide the play bar to 1;48 to listen and I turned to Damien and asked him "Damien can you tell me where the World Heritage Boundaries Are"
He looked at me and stuttered "Errr"
"I am only asking a simple question" and repeated it,
"No" he said
"Isn't that a strange thing that the World Heritage Site Officer's, Press Officer does not know where it is, and wasn't it a request that Unesco made that the public at large should be informed by the Liverpool City Council as to its boundaries its principles and Architects and developers should be informed on its Overall Universal values so that protection can be afforded to it".

I don't know how john Hinchliffe can show his face with the mess that has happened while he has stood by and watched...idly.

I was out on a horrendous Mersey Ferry trip an hour before listening to the godawful commentary that you cant get away from, with Nick Ravenscroft. This was an interview to be broadcast on P.M radio 4 on Monday.
"Yes and this week they will roll out all the press power they can we may even see the elusive world heritage officer............whose press officer doe not even know where the world Heritage site is.
No you couldn't make it up.

Merseyside Civic Society Are To Meet The Unesco Monitering Mission-Why?

2011-11-10T12:09:00.001Z

Its Peter Brown and Trevor Skempton..what a joke, rolled out by the council in order to help them establish they are having a consultative exercise and not the whitewash they are intending to carry out next week when three Unesco delegates visist Liverpool. They did the same the last mission came here in 2006

Peter Brown said this about the Three Black Coffins on Mann Island. in an article written by Willian Leece and Peter Elson http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-life-features/liverpool-special-features/2009/06/24/jury-still-out-on-liverpool-mann-island-blocks-92534-23960446/
Peter Brown, chairman of Merseyside Civic Society, personally feels that the Mann Island scheme is a good one, although other society members disagree.

“I’ve been quite happy with the way it’s been handled and the final outcome. It would have been better if there was a masterplan, but in its absence this is the best scheme.
“My view is that it complements both the new museum and the Pier Head Three Graces.
“The new Mann Island blocks are square and black, so it’s a stark contrast with the white of the sloping new Museum of Liverpool and the classicism of the Three Graces.
“I think it’s a mistake to keep a ‘fire free’ zone between Albert Dock and the Pier Head. There is a need for financial stimulation in that area and to show entrepreneurial skills.
“The scheme offered the prospect for this and the architects worked it out well. They also managed to exceed their brief and more views of the Three Graces were retained than was proposed. I appreciate that the principal view from the south is obstructed, but none of these buildings were planned as a group, nor was it expected that these views would not be built across.
“We need a modern statement to showcase the aspirations of this city.
“It’s all consistent with what was proposed.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2006/03/14/capcult_regen_mann_island_feature.shtml
BBC Radio Merseyside article at the time

Tony Moscardini was always a solid rock http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/tony-moscardini-dispells-liverpools.html and he is excluded from this MCS meeting with Unesco it seems.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/04/merseyside-civic-society-heritage.html

I recall meeting Trevor Skempton when he was employed by the City Council to persuade the planning commttee that One Park West the 4th place Carbuncle Cup entry for 2009 was good gor the city.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/one-park-west-voted-one-park-worst-by.html
So why is he repesenting the Merseyside Civic Society and its members views?

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/one-park-west-voted-one-park-worst-by.html

Roll out the barrels...........

The World Heritage Steering Group will meet the Unesco mission here is the secret list of names of the group that steers...........what?
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/10/liverpools-world-heritage-steering.html

Mr Brocklebank-Its Like Old Times.

2011-11-10T11:34:00.000Z

Mr Brocklebank hits town with a bit of gusto and rhetoric this week..... its almost like I was writing the column again. Well done its good to see the old mucker (huh!) gets a bit of its old hard hitting self back.

DEVELOPERS in Liverpool are often harangued for allegedly undermining the city’s fine architectural heritage.

Not only is the world-class waterfront’s World Heritage Status imperilled by the excesses of modern construction crowding out the Three Graces, the uber-modern ferry terminal has in recent years lifted aloft the Carbuncle Cup, and the Museum of Liverpool took runner-up spot in this year’s competition.
So it’s refreshing for Mr Brocklebank when he hears of a developer who is sensitive to the needs of some of the city’s fine old historic sites when putting in for planning permission for their grand designs.Step forward Maghull Developments, which this week was given the go-ahead for a multi-million pound equestrian centre on the site of the former Allerton Priory and Home Farm, and has been seeking the help of “one of the country’s most reputable heritage advisors who has been working closely with the council’s conservation officers”.
The squire will say it again: three cheers for Maghull Developments. If only it had been around when someone decided to rip down the fine historic gem that was Josephine Butler House on Mulberry Street a couple of years ago to make way for a car park.
Ah.

ONE frequent attendee at Liverpool’s planning meetings is Liberal leader Cllr Steve Radford, who is never short of an objection or two.
Certainly in recent years the biggest bee in his bonnet has been to do with the number of hostels springing up around the north end of the city. As many in local political circles will know, the indomitable defender of Fortress Tuebrook is nothing if not plain spoken (a quality that has seem him brush up against the Standards Board in the past).
However, it can sometimes be the case that he mixes his metaphors (or rather, his similes): hence his blasting of committee members he felt to be complacent on the matter as “rubber chickens” – a phrase that certainly furrowed quizzical brows on the committee benches.
As one helpfully clarified for a committee member afterwards: “I hazard what he meant to say was you’re a bunch of a headless chickens just rubber stamping applications”. So that’s all right, then.
ALL of the above brings the insuperably droll planning chairman Cllr John Mackintosh’s comments at the beginning of the planning meeting into sharper focus.
“We’ve got some students here who are doing planning at Liverpool Uni,” he said in his characteristic Everton drawl, “so hopefully they can pick up a few things.
“I wouldn’t bank on it, though.”

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/liverpool-columnists/2011/11/10/mr-brocklebank-horses-for-courses-drinking-once-they-ve-bolted-92534-29750862/

David Swift On World Heritage Risks

2011-11-08T13:07:00.000Z

David Swift, the tireless heritage workhorse, and Liverpool World Heritage Watchdog writes in to today's Daily Post to try to counterbalance some of the more extreme views on World Heritage, by those it seems who don't understand the full gravity of the situation.
Unesco have asked to meet Mr Swift when the Unesco Monitoring Mission visits Liverpool early next week. They are keen to hear his views.
I am in admiration of Mr Swifts tireless efforts for little credit in the fight to save Liverpool's World Heritage Site from the sort of developments that have become far too evident at the Pier Head. If Liverpool had more people of the calibre of Mr Swift the historic and urban landscape of the city would be in a far better place.

We should be proud of heritage

LOSING World Heritage status would be a disaster, giving further ammunition to the national anti-scouse stereotype. Fortunately, the rest of the world does not share this prejudice.
They see Liverpool as a characterful tourist destination and our World Heritage status, properly advertised and marketed, should be a massive asset. It would be foolish to risk it.
Yet I wonder what Unesco must make of a city which requires a second monitoring mission in such a short space of time. We should be proud of our heritage and obey the rules which our city leaders signed up to, as recently as the Supplementary Planning Document of October 2009.
The criteria set out in this document do not prevent appropriate redevelopment – quite the contrary!
So in response to J.Sully and I.Poole (Daily Post November 1 and 3), who would happily throw away our status – a tirade against Wayne Colquhoun and what they describe as the heritage "lobby" is off the mark. It is childishly easy to dish up an artist’s impression of a Shanghai skyline. Rather more difficult to create quality architecture on a human scale. If you want to see proof of what happens when architects and planners are let loose then just look at the mess on Mann Island.
In conclusion, the Unesco monitoring mission was invited to visit Liverpool by the UK Government. This followed advice given in an independent report on Liverpool Waters to English Heritage. I’m sure Unesco would rather not have to do this inspection – they must have lost confidence in our city leaders by now.

David Swift, Litherland

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/letters-to-editor/2011/11/08/letters-to-the-editor-november-8-keep-fireworks-to-organised-displays-only-92534-29736796/

Museum of Liverpool-Shoddy And Defective, Another Legal Battle Commences.

2011-11-07T15:06:00.000Z

Several months ago I wrote about the shoddy and defective work on the Museum of Liverpool when a ceiling fell in, injuring workmen, the local papers did not print the story.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/06/legal-row-hangs-over-liverpool-museum.html

THE architects involved in the construction of Liverpool's new £72m Museum have been accused of making a series of errors as part of a £3.5m High Court claim.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/11/05/museum-of-liverpool-architects-accused-of-series-of-errors-in-3-5m-high-court-claim-100252-29725784/ Alan Weston writes;

The court documents, now lodged in London’s High Court, accuse architects and lead consultants AEW of negligence, breach of contract, and shoddy workmanship which was both “defective and dangerous”.
It is also alleged the architects made changes without consultation – and, in some cases, planning permission – during the construction of the flagship waterfront building.
Problems with the design culminated in a large number of panels in one of the gallery ceilings falling and injuring a workman on May 25 this year – just two months before the museum opened to the public.
The claim by National Museum Liverpool states that a “material cause of the collapse was the defective design of the ceiling ... upon investigating that collapse, NML identified the said unconventional and defective support system used for those ceilings.”
NML said the poor quality of the workmanship meant that 2,000 sq m of public space had been affected, including two major galleries and significant parts of the ground floor.
It adds: “The net result is that notwithstanding the fact that over 750,000 people (including 100,000 schoolchildren) will visit the Museum over the next 12 months, it is unable to offer anything like the experience it should and would be able to had the collapse not occurred.”
NML is making the multi-million pound claim to recover its costs in correcting the defects which came to light. No date has yet been set for the hearing.
Manchester-based architects AEW took over the design of the new Museum of Liverpool after previous architects – Dutch firm 3XN – were sacked by the museum operator. This is now the subject of a separate legal action by NML.
As previously reported, the museum operator was also unhappy with the quality of the work carried out on the outdoor steps of the new building at the Pier Head. NML argued that the design for the steps and terraces was “unworkable/unbuildable”, and that work was undertaken without the organisation’s consent or not to its liking.
In particular, a plinth – designed to correct a previous mistake in the design – “did not have planning permission and is inappropriate and unacceptable in terms of safety, utility and aesthetics”.
The steps were also inadequately water resistant, leaving the plant and artefact storage rooms vulnerable to water damage. For this reason, the steps and terraces are still closed to the public while remedial work is carried out.
NML chairman Phil Redmond said: “It’s really unfortunate the only mechanisms open to us to resolve these issues is by going through the legal process.
“We have an obligation to protect the public purse and this is only the mechanism we can go to in the end.”
The board and trustees of NML have already been forced to pay back £500,000 to AEW in withheld fees.
AEW said it was unable to comment because of a “confidentiality agreement”.
A spokesman for National Museums Liverpool said: “We can confirm we have issued legal proceedings against AEW and 3XN and therefore can make no further comment at this stage.”
The Museum of Liverpool, which opened its doors to the public in July, is the first national museum to be built in more than a century. Despite its problems, the museum has received 500,000 visitors in just three months. The second phase of work at the landmark building, which includes the Overhead Railway, will be officially unveiled on December 2nd.

So at the new unveiling date.........mind your heads.
Can we also get a ceiling on the spiraling costs never mind the spiral staircase.

Ron Van Oers-How Can He Show His Face Again In Liverpool?

2011-11-04T15:12:00.000Z

In November 2006 A Unesco Monitoring Mission came to Liverpool at our request. The mission of two, were Michelle Bonnette and Ron Van Oers.

I had a meeting with them for 15 minutes after a long conversation in Municipal Buildings with Florence Gersten who was wrongly excluded.
She asked me to hand them documents she had written from her vast knowledge.
Then directly after, a delegation of four from the Merseyside Civic Society led by Peter Brown, who later announced that he was a supporter of the Man Island black coffins went in.
Pat Moran was part of the delegation as was anther member who I would later find out was one of the people representing the MCS who would also be representing a owner of property that would be directly affected by the Mann Island and museum proposals.
If you recall the Liverpool Museums had to pay £750,000 for loss of (our) views to one developer that owned property at the Pier Head.
So the Itinerary stated that the City Council Limousine picked the mission up, and the council afforded them meetings in quick fire successions that were presentations and led them around like poodles.
There was a lot riding on this mission but Ron & Co let us down badly.
They said that the Mann Island proposals would not affect the Overall Universal Value of the World Heritage Site………….How wrong can they be.
We were hoping that Unesco, as a last resort would advise the council against its plans that were funded by the NWDA and sponsored by Liverpool Vision, (Joe Anderson was and is a member) who employed the deplorable October Communications, now Aurora Media to come up with a publicity drive.
Jon Egan used all his skills to slime as many articles into the paper to Larry Neild, the then City Editor who now works for Egan.
Larry Neild won an award from Downtown Liverpool In Business, and guess who does their media now.
October Communications lined up presentations with Icomos UK, the City Council then become a corporate member. Heard nothing from them this time.
Now they have asked if I can attend with Peter Brown, and Ian Wray who was a planner for NWDA….not a chance.
And to think, John Hinchliffe (world heritage waste of space) is organising it.

What a joke.
The UK Government then funded Unesco in 2007 to a tune of 16% of their budget for the year. Were they bought off?
One of the problems was that English Heritage were supporting the proposed schemes…………while Sir Neil Cossons the then Chairman of English Heritage was working for Liverpool Museums. You couldn’t make this up
So Ron you have been sent back to Liverpool on the 14th to 16th November to see what has been done at the Pier Head……….will you be big enough to say you made a mistake? Will you make a statement to say so?
How can the OUV not have been effected by building three black coffins a Terminal Ferry Carbuncle and a carbuncle Museum n the WHS.
Unesco, have a new Chairman let’s hope they are not as thick as the last one.
This time English Heritage have published an independent report into the damning effects Liverpool Waters will have on the World Heritage Site.

Lets hope that Ron Van Oers does not allow the council to blindfold him and lead him around like a shopkeepers dummy………like in 2006.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/10/31/christmas-d-day-for-liverpool-s-world-heritage-site-verdict-92534-29689116/

http://whc.unesco.org/en/178/?action=detail&order=1430

http://www.vsaa.lt/Oers_sleeping_rvo.doc

Stanley Dock-Lets Hope This New Scheme Is Not Hot Air.

2011-11-02T12:10:00.000Z

The Stanley Dock Tobacco Warehouse has lay rotting for over 50 years.
It can be restored, I recall playing as a child in the open space that was the Albert Dock. Fishing for Flatties. Strolling amongst the grand ruins wondering why.
How many false dawns have we heard to get this historic landmark, a listed building.
Wasn't it Urban Splash that were about to do a scheme, our heritage saviours who really did cock up Park Hill along with English Heritage and their Chief Exec Dr Simon Thurley.

The Tobacco Warehouse Standing 125 foot (38m) high, the building was at the time of its construction, in 1901, also claimed to be the world's largest building in terms of area. Its construction used 27m bricks, 30,000 panes of glass and 8,000 tons of steel. It was designed by AG Lyster, the Dock Engineer, but Arthur Berrington almost certainly played a part.
The distinctive tobacco warehouse at Stanley Dock is the world’s largest brick warehouse.

English Heritage call it a travesty and keep it snug on the EH "At Risk" Register.
Even Dr Simon Thurley comes out of his Ivory Tower to say how important the Industrial Heritage is to the country.
Despite allowing Manchester Dock to be destroyed that predated the Albert Dock by 60 years.
English Heritage said that listed industrial buildings were more at risk than almost any other kind of historic site. This was said, In a general comment press pack, Alan Weston slots it into a story he did on October 19th 2011 http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/10/19/liverpool-s-stanley-dock-included-in-english-heritage-at-risk-list-92534-29619805/
He writes: Chief executive Simon Thurley said action was needed to save what he called the “world’s most important industrial heritage”.
The decision to focus on industrial heritage is backed by a poll of public attitudes, which revealed that 86% believed it was important to value and appreciate buildings such as mills and collieries, and 80% thought they were as important as country houses and castles.
Dr Thurley said there were many reasons for people to be passionate about industrial heritage. He added: “Part of it is family ties, there are so many people whose families have been involved in these industries.
“Many of the buildings are extremely prominent in their locations, such as big chimneys or big buildings, and people acquire affection for things around them.”

So two weeks later after it was announced as a "At Risk" building a fresh press pack from Malcolm (let's regenerate my political career) Kennedy hits the local press.
In which a plan is announced to renovate it and its area.
But there is controversy last nights BBC Northwest News said there was a problem that need more explaining. http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b016p50v/ They said 10 minutes 42 into the article that the Regional Growth Fund Members had recieved millions.
In Parliament questions were asked about the RG fund which decides were the cash goes.
The BBC alleges one of the recipients that was co-owned by a panel member that decides were the the fund goes and that it is said is, RedX Pharma.
The Government said that a panel member has declared an interest but played no part..............apparently.
The Eldonian village will get a new power station so they are to remain silent to any of the new developments. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/11/02/eldonians-rose-like-a-phoenix-from-flames-92534-29703573/ The first two projects for immediate delivery are the mixed use redevelopment of the landmark former tobacco warehouse at Stanley Dock and a low carbon combined heat and energy plant and work space by the Eldonians. David Bartlett says.Far more delving into this scheme needs to be done and it looks like the local papers will not do that.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/11/01/stanley-dock-rebirth-at-heart-of-130m-cash-boost-for-north-liverpool-92534-29695756/
Instead they anounce another dawn for the derelict area........in a recession, that apparantly has funding?
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/11/02/stanley-dock-plan-developer-revealed-as-harcourt-developments-builder-of-new-titanic-attraction-in-belfast-92534-29703575/
It is now announced that a Titanic Theme Park Developer is to transorm the redundant warehouse.

Cllr Malcolm Kennedy, cabinet member for regeneration and tourism, said it was great news that would act as a catalyst for further development.

“It will give a major impetus to the regeneration of the area and to the green energy agenda which will benefit the city as a whole. This approval provides the bridge between the transformed city centre and the tremendous investment opportunities in North Liverpool.”

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/liverpool-daily-post/2011/11/01/stanley-dock-scheme-the-key-to-north-s-revival-92534-29695673/ Lets hope they dont have

The City Fringe Programme for north Liverpool is intended to provide an investment strategy for the area between Liverpool city centre and the Liverpool Waters Enterprise Zone to ensure future employment growth while the regeneration of this area proceeds.

It includes plans to revamp the junction of Leeds Street and Great Howard Street to breakdown the physical barrier between the city centre and the more industrial area to the north.

David Bartlett-Daily Post, Keeping His Eye On Unesco Monitoring Mission Developments.

2011-10-31T12:50:00.000Z

Christmas D-day for Liverpool’s World Heritage Site verdict

LIVERPOOL will discover whether Unesco inspectors believe the city should be stripped of its World Heritage Site status by Christmas.
Read More http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/10/31/christmas-d-day-for-liverpool-s-world-heritage-site-verdict-92534-29689116/2/#ixzz1cMT4iQg3

Unesco is sending a monitoring mission to Liverpool because it is concerned about the impact of Peel Holdings’ £5.5bn Liverpool Waters skyscraper scheme to regenerate the city’s northern docklands.
It has warned the city could lose its World Heritage status if the project is given planning permission. It has now been confirmed the three-day mission will arrive on Monday, November 14.
According to the terms of reference, the mission will report its findings by December 23 at the latest.
Last night heritage campaigner Wayne Colquhoun, who was instrumental in persuading Unesco to send its inspectors, said he hoped they would not repeat “past mistakes”.
The inspectors being sent are Ron van Oers and Patricia Alberth from Unesco – the body which runs World Heritage Sites(WHS) – and Mr Giancarlo Barbato, an Italian Conservation Architect from ICOMOS, the International Committee on Monuments and Statues.
Mr van Oers was a member of a similar mission that visited Liverpool in 2006 and decided the WHS was not compromised by new developments at the city’s Pier Head which included the three granite blocks, which are now nearing completion.
Mr Colquhoun said: “I am afraid they put a blindfold on him because of what Unesco then allowed to be done to the central core of the World Heritage Site at the Pier Head – the very symbol of Liverpool – has been an architectural disaster.
“The last time I gave as much respect as I could to the monitoring mission and they let us down badly.
“I would like this monitoring mission to give Liverpool advice on how to protect and enhance the World Heritage Site with sustainable development. “The reason they are here is because we persuaded them it is a matter of urgency.” He said he was concerned the inspectors would be “sweet talked” by the city council and Peel Holdings.
Mr Colquhoun insisted he is not against developing the northern docklands but insists the proposals are not in keeping with Liverpool’s built environment.

He also made it clear he does not want Liverpool to lose its WHS but wants to see it better managed.
“I am in favour of developing the area but with a sustainable development like in Amsterdam that builds development around its waterways in a humane manner.”
The terms of reference state that the mission will assess the overall state of conservation and factors affecting the outstanding universal value of Liverpool’s WHS.
It will have “particular regard” to the proposed development of Liverpool Waters with its dense, high and mid-rise buildings.
The inspectors will also examine progress that has been made since the 2006 Unesco mission and the city’s overall development strategies, “existing planning procedures and management systems and their effectiveness for the property and its setting”.
The findings of the mission will be reported to the World Heritage Centre by December 23 at the latest in the report not exceeding 10 pages.
Liverpool has delayed making a decision on Peel’s planning application until after the visit.
Earlier this week the Daily Post revealed a campaign committee has been set up, by Liverpool council and Peel Holdings, to persuade Unesco officials not to strip Liverpool of its World Heritage Site status.

David Bartlett front pages todays news and it is re-assuring to note that the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo are, now, maybe, interested in creating a fair debate around the Unesco Monitoring Mission.
Thats all we have ever asked and lets hope it continues, in the interests of an equality of arms, against the might of PR companies with vested interests that the likes of Peel Holdings can employ.
And lets not forget the City Council are compliant to the extreme with Peel Holdings vision to create Shanghai-On-Mersey, without giving the citizens of the city.......their say.

Frank McKenna, Representing Peel Holdings-Wants Liverpool World Heritage Status Scrapped.

2011-10-26T11:40:00.000+01:00

Peel Holdings have joined the organisation that McKenna runs, Downtown Liverpool In Business
http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/180198-scrap-heritage-site-status-if-waters-is-threatened-says-dlib.html

LIVERPOOL should relinquish its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site if it becomes a barrier to future regeneration plans, says business lobbying group Downtown Liverpool in Business (DLIB).

Unesco's World Heritage Committee is set to review Liverpool waterfront's status at its annual meeting in Paris next week in the light of recent schemes such as Neptune Developments' Mann Island and property giant Peel's proposals for its Liverpool Waters scheme - both of which have come under criticism from heritage organisations.
However, Frank McKenna of DLIB argues that the city’s future prosperity must take precedence over its illustrious past and that the status should not be used a tool to frustrate developments such as Peel's 14hectare, £5.5bn Liverpool Waters scheme.

He said: “I think it is right that we celebrate the past, but we should not live in it. Liverpool’s waterfront, and the Three Graces in particular, are world famous already without the UNESCO accreditation and we don’t need that badge to attract people to the city.

“It would be a tragedy for Liverpool’s economic future if the area recently designated as an Enterprise Zone were to be stymied because of a status that brings little to Liverpool’s reputation or economy.
“It is not only the site itself that causes problems for developers; the so-called ‘buffer zone’ has hindered schemes as far up as the Ropewalks area. World Heritage Status is becoming a barrier to regeneration and it cannot go on.

“Liverpool needs growth, development and jobs. If UNESCO cannot accept that, then we should have no hesitation in handing back the status.”
Peel Group became a member of Downtown Liverpool In Business last month.

Last week, Peel Group's development director Lindsey Ashworth told TheBusinessDesk.com that efforts to avoid a formal objection by English Heritage to the Liverpool Waters scheme had set the project back by around 12 months.

http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/179779-downtown-hosts-liverpool-business-week.html
McKenna and his developer lobby group whose members include Peel Holdings hosted a business week and their keynote speaker was his friend Joe Anderson.

http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/assets/_files/documents/jun_11/businessdesk__1309157834_LiverpCityRegion_June11.pdf

Liverpool Supplementary Planning Document-Its Law, Adopted by the U.K Government.

2011-10-25T11:30:00.001+01:00

They can tell you all the rubbish they like about how they will persuade Unesco's reactive monitoring mission, but this Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) is the reason that we escaped the wrath of Unesco's last monitoring mission........by making them empty promises of how we as a city will protect the Overall Universal Value of the WHS.
Its no point in Malcolm Kennedy, charged by Joe Anderson, the council leader, with Regeneration and Heritage, who appears to be seconded to Peel Holdings, who are planning to destroy the WHS with their plans for Shanghai-On-Mersey, telling us everything will be fine, it wont. Despite being employed by the citizens of Liverpool, Malcolm is now telling us how he will tell Unesco we will protect the WHS while setting out to destroy the OUV along with Peel Holdings. He is bluffing us with PR rubbish, the same as the Fib-Dems did before starting the job of WHS ruination.
http://liverpool.gov.uk/council/strategies-plans-and-policies/environment-and-planning/local-development-framework/local-development-documents/adopted-documents/world-heritage-site-spd/
Click the link to expand on the Supplementary Planning Document that we as a city adopted to secure the WH status, after the threats of removal. Unesco have said Peel Holdings Liverpool Waters planning application, if to be passed would destroy the Overall Universal Value of that World Heritage Site.

So lets break it down here is the SPD, its a long read but Unesco will do the work, I am sure. http://liverpool.gov.uk/Images/SPDWorldHeritageSite.pdf
Anyone commenting on Liverpools WHS needs to read this and that includes the local press.
http://liverpool.gov.uk/Images/SPDWorldHeritageSiteSustainabilityAppraisal.pdf
Here is the sustainability section of the SPD.
http://liverpool.gov.uk/Images/SPDWorldHeritageSiteStatementCommunityInvolve.pdf
Here is the section on public consultation in which the LPT are named as consultees to the preparation of the document as are the arch vandals Neptune Developments who decimated, along with Liverpool Museums, Liverpools WHS and its waterfront views.
This City Council can not be trusted.
http://liverpool.gov.uk/Images/SPDWorldHeritageSiteAppropriateAssessment.pdf
This section is called an Assesment Screening Report.
The report was prepared by Atkins who have also drawn up a set of plans to fill in Wellington Dock
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/10/wellington-dock-to-be-filled-in-is.html

Malcolm's mugs at the council and its sub division of Peel Holdings can put their head in the sand all they like but the lawful planning document has been adopted, by the city council.
This is what Unesco actually said that the current plans for Liverpool Waters goes directly in conflict against the SPD.

118. Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City (United Kingdom) (C 1150)

Decision: 35 COM 7B.118
The World Heritage Committee,
1. Having examined Document WHC-11/35.COM/7B.Add,
2. Expresses its extreme concern at the proposed development of Liverpool Waters in terms of the potential impact of its dense, high and mid-rise buildings on the form and design of the historic docks and thus on the Outstanding Universal Value of the property;
3. Notes that the independent Impact Assessment commissioned by English Heritage clearly sets out the significantly damaging negative impact on the Outstanding Universal Value of the property;
Decisions report WHC-11/35.COM/20, p. 150
4. Also notes that the proposed development is not in compliance with the property
Management Plan nor with the Liverpool Urban Development Plan;
5. Urges the State Party to ensure that these proposals are not approved, as failure to do so could lead to consideration of loss of the Outstanding Universal Value of the property;
6. Requests the State Party to invite a joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS reactive monitoring mission, as soon as possible, to assess planning procedures and the overall development strategies for the property;
7. Also requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2012, an updated report on the state of conservation of the property and on the implementation of the above, examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 36th session in 2012.

http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2011/whc11-35com-20e.pdf

Peel Holdings-Running Liverpool City Council

2011-10-24T15:20:00.000+01:00

David Bartlett has been fed this article in todays paper by the city council and PeelHoldings

A CAMPAIGN committee has been set up to persuade Unesco officials not to strip Liverpool of its World Heritage Site status.

The committee is being run by Liverpool University’s Prof Ian Wray, who is former head of planning at the North West Development Agency.
The group, which has representatives from Peel Holdings and Liverpool council, is currently drawing up an itinerary for the visit of the Unesco “monitoring mission” being sent to assess the city’s world heritage site.
The visit has been delayed by a month and is now pencilled in for mid-November.
Unesco is concerned about the impact of Peel Holdings’ £5.5bn Liverpool Waters skyscraper scheme.
It has warned the city could lose its world heritage status if the project is given planning permission.
The monitoring mission will report back to the next annual meeting of Unesco’s committee, due to be held next summer.
Liverpool has delayed making a decision on Peel’s planning application until after the visit from the Unesco inspectors.
Ian Pollitt, senior development surveyor at Peel who is charge of Liverpool Waters, said: “We have set up a steering group with the city council and Ian Wray to plan the visit.

“At the moment we have been told the 14 -16 of November, and we are currently waiting for confirmation of that.”
He said the Unesco inspectors were not just coming to see the site for the planned Liverpool Waters development, but the whole of the World Heritage site.
He added: “They are coming here to see that the council is capable of policing the World Heritage Site. Cllr Malcolm Kennedy, cabinet member for regeneration and the city’s appointed heritage champion, said he was proud of the way Liverpool is working to protect the WHS.
“I think what people have to do is come with an open mind, and examine what Liverpool is doing to enhance and protect the World Heritage Site.
“The World Heritage Site is not just about the Waterfront. It’s about William Brown Street, the Rope Walks and other areas.” He pointed to the recent reinstallation of the gates to the former Sailors’ Home, copies of other elements from it in a special garden in Liverpool One and the launch of a campaign in August to get companies to display WHS branding.
“It shows that we are doing something positive after years of relative inactivity.
“For me it is about the need to get the true picture across when they come.”
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/10/24/campaign-committee-set-up-to-save-liverpool-world-heritage-site-status-ahead-of-unesco-visit-92534-29647812/2/

How can you have the people doing the damage trying to save the WHS

ALL SAINTS - CHILDWALL 30 Pieces of Silver.

2011-10-20T11:58:00.001+01:00

Jonathon Wild who set up a website http://savechildwallchurch.info/ has sent me a copy of a letter he has obtained stating that there may be an appeal over the Liverpool City Council planning committee refusal of the right to dig up a load of dead bodies in All Saints Childwall, that the church should be respecting, and build a toilet block on the site. It beggars belief that the Bishop James Jones will now be fronting it. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/09/all-saints-childwall-and-pathetic.html
SOMEONE NEEDS TO STOP THE ROT AT THE CHURCH before its too late.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/11/all-saints-childwall-disaster-waiting.html

ALL SAINTS - CHILDWALL

Statement by the Parochial Church Council (PCC) of All Saints Church, Childwall.
Proposed development projects
Church Extension (The Rotunda)
You may well be aware that at a Liverpool City Council planning committee meeting held on 6th September 2011 All Saints planning application for the proposed extension to the church was turned down. Various reasons for the refusal were stated in the minutes of the meeting.
Since this meeting, All Saints’ has obtained professional advice from its consultants and has also been in communication with the Diocese. An extraordinary meeting of the PCC was held on 3rd October when a number of ways forward were explored and discussed. These included not proceeding further with any sort of proposal; submitting a revised scheme, which would mean starting all over again; or appealing the decision made by the City Council.
The PCC was advised that, in our consultant’s opinion, the decision to refuse planning permission was seriously flawed and an appeal on planning grounds would have a very realistic chance of success. Notwithstanding this, the PCC was also aware that there was still a requirement to go through the faculty process (as we need full church authority approval to proceed in any event) and that there would probably also be a need for a full Consistory
Court hearing held in front of the Chancellor to the Diocese. There would also, at some stage in the process, be a need to undertake some trial hole excavation work (by the Diocesan
Archaeologist) in the area of the churchyard affected between the church and the footpath running parallel to the church. This would solely be in an area of graves of ancient origin (i.e. prior to 1880 where we have no cross referencing of graves to burials).

To enable due process to take place the above series of actions could well take up to the end of 2012 to be concluded.
At the end of the PCC meeting held on 3rd October a UNANIMOUS decision was taken by the PCC to proceed with an appeal, having taken all known factors into consideration. All Saints’ would also submit a faculty application in connection with the proposed works.

SUMMARY
The Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, has agreed to be Patron of our development and is visiting the church on Sunday 29th January to officially launch our appeal for funding. This will obviously only be for the redevelopment of the Church Hall as it is not intended that we would commence fundraising for the extension to the church until after all the necessary approvals are in place. In the interim (i.e. between now and the end of 2012) all of our energies will be engaged on fundraising for the hall alterations and extensions, to enable the much needed additional facilities included within our plans for the hall to become a reality.
As far as the Rotunda is concerned an appeal with regard to the City Council’s refusal of planning permission and the separate submission of a faculty application to the church authorities will take place in due course.
This statement will be placed on All Saints’ official website today
16th October 2011

Judas and his chariot couldnt have done a more out of touch letter than this.

Art and Architecture-Its All Subjective. Liverpool Needs Unesco Help.

2011-10-18T13:22:00.000+01:00

Can you spot a Carbuncle? Can Unesco? A Reactive Monitering Mission is currently being planned by Unesco through an invitation from the DCMS. This will review the situation regarding Liverpool and its lack of respect for its World Heritage Site. Remember it is not Liverpool City Council's job to protect the WHS, as they appear to be in bed with Peel Holdings, it is the UK Government as State Party. We are signed up to a WH Charter and to protect the WHS Unesco told the UK State Party that Liverpool needs to draw up provisions for protection of its key asset the WHS. http://liverpool.gov.uk/council/strategies-plans-and-policies/environment-and-planning/local-development-framework/local-development-documents/adopted-documents/world-heritage-site-spd/ Click the link to expand on the Supplementary Planning Document that we as a city adopted to secure the WH status, after the threats of removal. Unesco have said Peel Holdings Liverpool Waters planning application, if to be passed would destroy the Overall Universal Value of that World Heritage Site.

Wellington Dock To Be Filled In-Is There Any Hope For Liverpools World Heritage Site?

2011-10-13T14:52:00.000+01:00

They filled in Trafalger Docks...... and now they want to fill in Wellington Docks for a Water Treatment Plant.

Wellington Docks was the site for the berthing of the 2008 Tall Ships event.

This is the design review. Done by Atkins was it the same Atkins that prepared the SPD.

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/CABE/Design-Review/1/Liverpool-Waste-Water-Treatment-Extension-at-Wellington-Dock/

Liverpool Waste Water Treatment Extension at Wellington Dock

Designed by Atkins for United Utilities
Planning reference: 11F/1581

Reviewed (date of review): 12 September 2011While we understand the need of this facility for Liverpool, we acknowledge that the proposed plant sits in the buffer zone of the Liverpool World Heritage Site and affects the structure of the historic dock. In this instance, however, we concentrate our comments on the design of the building.

Building design

We find the approach to dealing with the dock wall and preserving the perception of the water interesting, but we suggest using a more robust material for the “water surface” that is more in line with the overall appearance of the building. In principle, the reduced design and the simple form of the building work well. The success of the scheme depends on good detailing and materials that are long-lasting, durable and easy to maintain, particularly bearing in mind the harsh maritime environment. We recommend that the client reassesses the choice of materials and perhaps replaces the Kingspan cladding with concrete. We feel that a single material would reinforce the strong, simple industrial appearance of the proposal. The artwork on the western elevation needs to be selected carefully to ensure that it is of high quality to last and look good. We would also like to point out that the recess between the dock wall and the building could easily turn into an unsightly rubbish trap if not constantly cleaned and maintained.

Liverpool was asked to put together a Supplementary Development Plan for Unesco.

pg 63, 64 and 65 deals with Dock Water Spaces. The last paragraph says It is considered inappropriate for existing water spaces within the docks that survive, within the buffer zone to be infilled.

http://liverpool.gov.uk/council/strategies-plans-and-policies/environment-and-planning/local-development-framework/local-development-documents/adopted-documents/world-heritage-site-spd/

History of the Site. 2008 Tall Ships event at the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2008/07/16/tall_ships_map_feature.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_Dock

http://www.old-merseytimes.co.uk/liverpooldocks.html

BBC Radio Merseyside Job Cuts-But who is Doing The Cutting. Is It Alison Hastings, David Flemings Wife?

2011-10-12T13:44:00.001+01:00

National Museums Liverpool have written a collective letter to express support against the BBC cuts that are being made at Radio Merseyside and at local TV and Radio in general.

When you think that Dr David "Fuzzy Felt" Flemings, NML Directors, (known for a cut or three himself,) wife, Alison Hastings is doing the cuts, isn't that a bit of a oxymoron.
She is also a member of the Press Complaints Commission etc, etc,etc
She is also Vice President of the British Board of Film Censors so she will be alright for films to be sent to her.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/about/who_we_are/trustees/ Here is a full list of the BBC trustees

Alison Hastings must be the networker of the year. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/about/who_we_are/trustees/alison_hastings.shtml

Alison Hastings

National Trustee for England
Alison edited a large multi-edition metropolitan evening newspaper which, under her, won awards for campaigning and investigative journalism. She now works as a media consultant for organisations like the Press Complaints Commission and Camelot. Alison’s career as a regional journalist and her life in

Liverpool give her a valuable perspective on the interests of licence fee payers outside London and the South East, making her the ideal person to hold the role of National Trustee for
England. Her understanding of the pressures faced by the commercial media gives the BBC valuable insights into the wider industry that will help shape its role in supporting a vibrant creative sector in the UK.

BBC Trust responsibilities
• Chairman, Editorial Standards Committee
• Chairman, Audience Councils Committee
• Member, Audiences and Performance Committee
• Chairman, Audience Council (England) Current external positions
• Vice President, British Board of Film Classification
• Media Consultant
• Member, Society of Editors
• Local Governing Board member, Birkenhead High School Academy Previous external positions
• Member, Press Complaints Commission (1999 – 2002)
• Editor, Newcastle Evening Chronicle (1996 – 2002)

So we have old fuzzy face Fleming cutting jobs at Liverpool Museums and his wife doing the same at the BBC, can you imagine the conversation at the breakfast table.
"How many thousands of innocent hard working people are you going to sack today dear"

BBC Cuts-After They Spend A Billion Pounds On A Carbuncle.

2011-10-07T11:44:00.000+01:00

I really don't want anyone to lose their jobs, but lets hope they start the cuts at the BBC, with the atrocious Bargain Hunt, then the Antique Road Trip, where a bunch of boring auctioneers travel round the country for two weeks to make a hundred quid profit each, but don't count the expenses in, which would be about a hundred quid a night for a hotel. They don't even count the petrol or any other expenses. And then Flog it should go.........ahh Paul Martin he is so nice. Its cheap trash and we would all be better off without this jolly boys outing for a cheap diatribe. Its lazy work by the BBC.
But to spend 877 million quid and a further 100 million pounds in relocation costs to Salford Media City really is absurd.
The Guardian says today: Futuristic-looking or a giant carbuncle – depending on your point of view – the building on the banks of the canal will ultimately accommodate 3,300 staff including BBC Sport, BBC Children's and the BBC1 Breakfast programme.

It has come with a hefty price tag. Leased by the BBC from property and transport conglomerate the Peel Group, it will cost £877m over the next 20 years, with a further £90m spent on relocating staff and departments from London.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/06/bbc-salford-home-bargain

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/09/peel-holdings-win-carbuncle-cup-what.html
So what hope for Liverpools World Heritage Site when Peel Holdings have their Carbuncle Cup winning Media City in Salford endorsed by the BBC so effectively we paid for it.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/09/liverpool-waters-shanghai-on-mersey.html

Closer to home the local radio station will get cuts with programme sharing on a national scale.
Mick Ord told me recently during a meeting I had with him to complain about Liver Building Lies http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/07/liver-building-lies-propagated-by-bbc.html that were propagated by the BBC, that Roger Philips programme gets 80,000 listeners, not sure how they calculate it but it really does need a shake up, there in crusty-ville.
Rog is now well and truly part of the establishment. He would go to the opening of an envelope I told Mick. He knows everyone and never upsets his friends such as Phil Redmond. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/08/liver-building-denigration-by-liverpool.html

The Liver Building Lies were meant as a cover for the new Museum of Liverpool, that came second in BD's Carbuncle Cup http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/09/museum-of-liverpool-runner-up-in-2011.html What a day out was had by all at the local media. Selling it to Joe, the public, and his mates dog, good job all round BBC, local Radio Merseyside, but did you tell the truth?
Some people may need the radio to sit there, listening, in their slippers, by the fire with a pipe, in a rocking chair, listening to Perry Como, "Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket", but that's not fair. Where is the real debate, the proper stuff.
The local BBC is far too compliant and reliant on the local press for their news, that's Lazy work.
The Billy 'bloody' Butler it was on when I was kid and they are still playing the same records. "Errr you know wha' I mean, like"
Mick said he would organise a serious debate in the debating chamber.....that we paid for......on the issue of Peel Holdings and the threat to World Heritage, that Unesco said would lose us the WHS status if it went ahead, that Peel Holdings the BBC's landlords want to build..........as of yet I have heard nothing, not a Dicky Bird. Maybe they have worries about the future of the station, but they still have a duty.

"Magic.....moments. Heres another crusty old record on the turntable folks, from Perry, get your slippers and your smoking jacket on, Good old BBC keeping the masses happy.

Should the Daniel Adamson Tugboat go to the Ellesmere Port Boat Museum?

2011-10-05T16:00:00.000+01:00

With the news that lottery funding has been refused is it now time in this economic climate to re-assess the situation and make some drastic and sweeping changes that may change the fate of a once forlorn hope, The Daniel Adamson, or Danny as it now likes to be called.

Although the funding may still come through or be revised, the whole project is at a pivotal point for all the hardworking people who will have been bitterly disappointed at the news that funding has not been granted. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2011/10/05/heritage-lottery-fund-refuses-to-fund-historic-mersey-tug-daniel-adamson-100252-29538957/

Did the Heritage Lottery Fund think, We don’t want another Waverly situation where money continues to be evaporated like steam off its condenser. Or was it because there was not enough education facilities available and a worry that funding it may turn out to be a hobby horse for a few people.

It is berthed in a dock on land owned by Peel Holdings and has restricted access, this leaves the Tender in a compromised situation for its redevelopment. Though Peel have helped out in allowing it to be berthed there, this is not advisable for its future.

There is no public access to see the tender except for special occasions, and with Peels record on the historic environment, where the Pump Station at Langton Dock just lays rotting, and they are planning Shanghai-On-Mersey there is no future in leaving it there. http://www.danieladamson.co.uk/

Its historic value is that it is named after the man who built the Manchester Ship Canal, that bypassed Liverpool, and considering the Canal goes right past the Boat Museum it makes sense to ally it there with its fellow lost causes.
Yes, it was once there and the washed up trustees of the Boat Museum let it go for the token sum of a pound. But that was then and this is now. The public need access to it to see it, and an education facility is required. The Boat Museum has classroom and education facilities. It is up and running and not some godforsaken forgotten dock that's on Private Peel land has none. http://www.nwm.org.uk/

So where better than the Ellesmere Port Boat Museum, as long as a few washed up trustees are ex ponged and replaced with people like Peter Elson to help steer his passion for things that sink.

The publicity that has been created from the campaign to save her needs to keep going, but would that new found momentum be a help to another worthy cause? The Boat Museum?

Will the trustees of the Boat Museum understand that their past ineffectual attitude and infighting has made them look a basket case.

The recent BBC series on Museums, in general, that was filmed there, on the Wirral, showed that old blokes fighting for their last bastion of jobsworth power, before they are declared irrelevant, and sinking ships, go down well together. But these old things are our history. Sink the trustees I say.

Running out of steam is constant problem for trustees and need constant revitalisation.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/in-the-mix/2011/09/05/liverpool-s-ss-daniel-adamson-tugboat-captures-the-heart-of-heritage-chiefs-100252-29362399/

Putting it in perspective £2.8 million is a huge sum and when there is no tangible asset at the end such as with a property based bid. Where does this leave the heritage lottery bid and all the hard work the current team have done to get the bid this far.

Achilleas Kallakis, Ex Owner of Liverpools India Buildings On Trial For Fraud.

2011-10-03T12:24:00.000+01:00

Achileas Heel, my opinion is, this man should be locked up.

He left India Buildings in Dire Straights with his corporate antics. Gambling with normal peoples lives, their businesses he played a silly game for his own enjoyment, Achileas Heel.

He did normal people out of redundancy payments. That is something the trial wont show......how his dealings affected ordinary folk. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2008/12/03/turmoil-reigns-at-india-buildings-100252-22394368/

A poker playing gambler. He played the same tactics in his every day life, I am aware of him employing horrid people to carry out his whims.

What a horrid little man my ex landlord at India Buildings was.
I lost track of the bullying tactics that he employed in India Buildings to secure his authority while all the time the shyster was allegedly robbing banks from his yacht in Monaco. pic thanks to Property Week
http://www.propertyweek.com/news/kallakis-fraud-trial-begins/5025392.article
On trial along with Alexander Williams

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/565abc30-eabd-11e0-ac18-00144feab49a.html#axzz1ZiOscgeH

Both have previously pleaded guilty to an offence of conspiracy to defraud. Under their previous names of Stefano Kollakis and Martin Lewis, the pair admitted in 1995 to selling fake titles and coats of arms to “unsuspecting Americans”, The trial is estimated to last three months and Robin Barclay and George Carter-Stephenson QC, barristers for the defendants, will begin arguments for their clients in the coming days.

I wrote a while ago http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/03/ss-manxman-owner-charged-with-fraud.html about the SS Manxman owner, when the dodgy geyser left us all high and dry without services at India Buildings
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2008/12/03/turmoil-reigns-at-india-buildings-100252-22394368/

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/12/ss-manxman-lies-rusting-its-disgraceful.html
The SS Manxman lies rusting and is about to be cut up.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/04/ss-manxman-its-over-its-scrap-and-its.html

He ran his operations from Mayfair and Monaco.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/29/accused-fraudster-kallakis-used-forgeries-court-told
Anyway, Send him down. Its the best place for him, before he scams someone else.

New Planning Laws, Will Be A Conservative Party Con.

2011-09-30T12:37:00.000+01:00

Are the Coalition Government and its mate susing the recession in order to do a load of favours to their mates.
The Sunday Times seems to think so.
You may think this may not effect you but it will.
I thought it may be worth just highlighting something that may be going unoticed on a local level.
Considering the mess that Liverpool planners have made of the WHS, one would think they would be tightening rules not relaxing them.
click on the pictures to read.
I was asked for an opinion to the Mann Island Disgrace for Radio 4's Beyond Westminster programme which was aired quite a few Saturdays past. Its worth a listen http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b010r7by/ on the BBC i-player.

Museum of Liverpool-More Legal Action.

2011-09-29T12:07:00.000+01:00

Liverpool Museums ae now in a further set of legal action.....this time over the museum steps.
How can a bunch of bungling buffoons led by David Fleming and Phil Redmond get away with such incompetence. Both should go now.
NML chairman Phil Redmond said: “We will fight robustly to protect the public purse. It’s amazingly frustrating that we have to go through legalistic procedures, but it is the only mechanism we have.”
pic ROME MAXXI well they do look the same don't they.

Yes he would say that, this is the plastic scouser who does not live in Liverpool that defended the £750,000 that was paid to Downing over the breach of covenants over protected views that should have seen a pay off to every Liverpudlian for an act of architectural vandalism.
He doesnt even own up to here he lives does our Phil.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/08/phil-redmonds-house-is-featured-in.html
Now there is a 500k dispute over the museum steps.
David Bartlett reports http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/09/29/museum-of-liverpool-new-legal-action-against-aew-architects-over-museum-steps-92534-29505728/
How can you sack an architect and then expect the project to go well. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/museum-of-liverpool-sues-3xn-architects.html
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/07/museum-of-liverpool-cock-up-work-stops.html

I wrote of this a year ago

Just how can this saga end? will Fleming go or will he be pushed? http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/09/david-fleming-of-nml-will-he-go-or-will.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/06/legal-row-hangs-over-liverpool-museum.html

You could not make this up if you tried. This is the building that came runner up in BD's Carbuncle Cup competition for the worst designed building of 2011.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/09/museum-of-liverpool-runner-up-in-2011.html

Liverpool Vision-Blind Mans Bluffers-Can't They See The Damage?

2011-09-26T15:50:00.000+01:00

Today in the Liverpool Daily Ghost we have another advertorial plumper, this time for Joe Andersons Liverpool Vision. How can they at the Daily Ghost be blind to the facts of what is really going on.

Liverpool (lack of) Vision are the purveyors of the three black coffins at Mann Island. David Wade-Smith says he rescued the Cruise Terminal from going under, whilst on the Vision board, but forgot to look at the small print, as it is now an embarrassment that the Liners cant depart from it.

Now they issue a press release saying;
REGENERATION agency Liverpool Vision has pledged to make the city “a beacon for enterprise”.

In its annual review for 2010-11, Vision has listed its targets for coming years – including a pledge to “establish Liverpool as a top international and national investment location with dynamic trade, investment, knowledge and tourism relationships”.
Vision also pledges to make Liverpool a city with a global reputation for science, creativity and innovation. The agency also wants to see Liverpool “become the number one culture and visitor destination in the UK outside London”. It is also backing a Strategic Regeneration Framework to revive the economic fortunes of North Liverpool and South Sefton. Vision chairman Mike Parker said: “In difficult economic conditions Liverpool Vision has again fulfilled a pivotal role for the city while adapting to the changing priorities of the city. “It has been an important year that has allowed us to capitalise on our hugely successful presence at the World Expo in Shanghai. “We are forging new global relationships and detailing Liverpool’s outstanding offer as a place in which to work, live, invest, study and visit.

“Much is still to be done to improve the quality of Liverpool’s physical and business environment to help emerging high value sectors realise their potential, to promote innovation and competitiveness and support business in creating jobs and wealth. Liverpool Vision will remain in the vanguard of this work.”

Liverpool City Council leader, Cllr Joe Anderson, said: “Vision is Liverpool’s business-facing organisation and is trusted and respected by the private sector. “This trust and its reputation for delivery are crucial if it is to help Liverpool to continue to grow and prosper in the future.”

Strange that the Times has a different slant altogether in this weekends paper. click on the photo to read.

Incidently, they show a ten year old picture, Heaven knows I'm miserable now.

Liverpool Waters-Shanghai-On-Mersey

2011-09-23T11:24:00.000+01:00

This is what they do in Shanghai to the historic buildings in the name of progress. Leave them stranded awaiting their fate.
I was recently in Langton Dock and Peel Holdings who own several historic and listed buildings in the area are I am afraid about to do the same as this ghastly haunting image, to Liverpool's historic docklands, a world heritage site. All the warning signs are there.
Peel have now joined the Mersey Partnership.

Beware the creeping fate of so called progress.

Some journolists are aware of this and are also aware of the disaster unfolding, but the Liverpeel Daily Ghost still seem to print Public relation plumper's for Peel whenever they can, at every opportunity they line another piece of tripe up for your delectation. But read Martin Samuels column by clicking on thepicture and be aware that the local press care not for your world heritage site, just look what has happened to the Pier Head while Mark Thomas and Alastair Machray have been editors.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/09/22/cammell-laird-and-peel-join-the-mersey-partnership-92534-29465632/

Now someone called John Siddle comes into the fray with more silly writing ill thought out and misleading. He says Liverpool was named an “exemplar city” in the UN’s World Urban Campaign 100 Cities Initiative for its public-private sector approach to sustainability.

Cllr Nick Small, cabinet member for employment, enterprise and skills, said: “Liverpool clearly has a great story to tell, which resonates across the world and more people want to hear it.
“This is an exciting development and a considerable honour. Only 21 other cities have so far joined the 100 Cities Initiative, and Liverpool is the first UK participant.
“The UN has recognised our commitment to building a better sustainable future for our citizens.”
“It offers the city the chance to learn from others, share our experience and build long term international relationships which the city can benefit from for many years, as well as showcasing the city to potential investors and visitors.”
Liverpool was formally adopted into the scheme, which recognises good urban planning, ecological and economic sustainability, at a ceremony in Amsterdam.
The city’s request to be included was pushed forward by Liverpool Vision in conjunction with the council and a range of high-profile private and public sector partners, including Peel, Cofely/GDF SUEZ and Arup.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/09/20/united-nations-praises-liverpool-for-sustainable-development-92534-29451916/

Cosidering the UN as Unesco have put Liverpool on notice it seems right to say that John Siddle who usually writes for the Southport Visitor http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/authors/john-siddle/ would be better off covering the Southport Flower show than plumping for Peel.

Councillor Gary Millar-Set To Make A Packet On Parr Street Studio Sale.

2011-09-21T15:34:00.000+01:00

I recall they were doing us all a favour..........saving an iconic piece of Liverpool history, Studio 2, The Parr Street Studios, once owned by Phil Collins, where Coldplay recorded, when in reality Gary Millar the councillor responsible for tourism, and his mates were out to make a packet for themselves.
Remember all the sob stories and how Warren Bradley and the ex Fib Dem council did all they can to help, with errr, saving the studios. Warren Bradley fast tracked him.
He turned up at One Park Worst looking like a baloon
http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/wondrous-place.html To hug the building nominated for the Carbuncle Cup award. http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/hugs-from-mugs.html Correspondent had the measure of him.

Remember all the fuss when they wanted to buy the studios. Was public money used?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2006/05/25/capcult_parrst_feature.shtml

http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/11994/phil-collins-plans-to-sell-parr-street-studios

Gary Millar then jumped ship from the Fib Dems and defected to the other side http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2011/04/26/senior-liverpool-councillor-gary-millar-defects-from-lib-dems-to-join-labour-100252-28582709/ Some may call him a two faced bar steward, but not I.

http://www.gigwise.com/news/17510/Protest-Against-Parr-Street-Studios-Closure-Takes-Place
There were public demonstrations to save the studios.

Now LIVERPOOL’S famous Parr Street recording studio and hotel complex is being sold with a price tag of just under £3m.
It was saved from closure in 2006 by a trio of businessmen – city councillor Gary Millar, Steve Macfarlane and Thomas Lang

Millar became business assistant to council leader Joe Anderson after defecting from the Lib-Dems to Labour in April this year.

They bought the studio in 2006 from a company called Hit and Run, which was part-owned by former Genesis lead singer Phil Collins.
Even Barry Manilow have all used the city centre facility down the years.
Cant think of a better reason to have closed it down!

The deal, believed to have been worth around £1.6m, was struck after a campaign against a plan by Hit and Run to close the studio and convert the building to luxury apartments.

Hit and run is the right name for this new crowd. What a profit margin. They will be selling the Picket next.
Now they are all set to coin it, and all on, and with, the godwill of the people they told they were doing us all a favour, when they got behind them as act of goodwill.

http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/search?q=gary+millar&updated-max=2009-11-03T19%3A05%3A00Z&max-results=20 Gary Millar now seems to be promoting the Cruise Cock up campaign.
Does he have a stake in that too.

COME BACK TREVOR JONES.

David Fleming of NML-Will He Go? Or Will He Be Pushed?

2011-09-20T12:31:00.000+01:00

Never has there been such a case to sack a Museum Director, as the case against Dr David Fleming.
How he has managed to stay in his job is beyond me.
I said a long time ago that he will bugger off as soon as he has erected "Flemings Folly" leaving us with a huge carbuncle in the world heritage site that helped to create a chain of events that now sees Liverpool as an architectural laughing stock.
He even saw off Loyd Grossman after the pair of them helped destroy Manchester Dock, now buried under the Museum of Liverpool, showing that the reality is, Fleming is not in the slightest bit worried about Liverpool history................but his own career.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/11/loyd-grossman-lectures-us-on-heritage.html
It may have backfired on him this time, the national press have slagged off the misguided design, if that's what you can call it of Liverpool's new eyesore.
Nearly sixty years after the blitz more architectural damage is done to Liverpool's historic fabric by giving old Fuzzy Felt Fleming a hundred million quid to play around with than was done by the Lufftwaffe during the Blitz.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/09/museum-of-liverpool-runner-up-in-2011.html
Runner up in BD's Carbuncle Cup competition.
“Our first reaction was that you shouldn’t build here,” Kim Nielsen, the director of 3XN, the Danish practice responsible for its original design, has said. He should have trusted his first instincts.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/museum-of-liverpool-sues-3xn-architects.html

Mistake after mistake, after elementary mistake was made by what is, in my opinion, an incompetent who, if he was doing an extension on his own house would have gone bankrupt for the lack of skill to manage his project.
He had all the Liverpool pottery removed from the Maritime Museum to make way for a cafe. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/maritime-dining-rooms-maritime-disaster.html

He called all his curators dysfunctional characters.........not the sort of people you would want to go for a drink with" he said to a interviewer in New Zealand. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/watching-detectives.html
Just how many will attend his leaving party.

He should have been sacked when he proclaimed that he wanted all young black men to feel shit http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/10/liverpool-black-history-month-will-dr.html
Yes the Director slavery museum said what. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/08/dr-david-fleming-to-be-investigated-by.html
Andy Kelly the news editor of the Daily Ghost bottled it and hid the story. Trinity "Smoking" Mirror fashion.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/12/david-bartlett-come-in-number-six-your.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/02/museum-of-liverpool-are-trustees-out-of.html
£750,000 were paid out for breach of covenants.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/12/national-conservation-centre-closes.html

So will he now jump or will he be pushed. The local press hailed the opening of the new Museum a success but now as the winter draws in and the kids are back at school there is hardly anybody going there. And of course it draws attention from our museum district.
He is on his way I feel a Judd-er around the museum that there is something about to take place, but its too late for Liverpool. The damage has been well and truly done.

Peel Holdings Win Carbuncle Cup-What Hope Is There For Liverpools World Heritage Site?

2011-09-15T12:12:00.000+01:00

Yes, they, at Peel Holdings, managed it, an award for carbunculating Salford with an architectural atrocity that is that bad it even knocked the new Museum of Liverpool into second place in the same competition.

Media City Salford scoops the award for the worst development of 2011.

The BBC put a brave face on it with a little snapshot on BBC Northwest.
The regional director was asked about the Carbuncle Cup award for their new home. "Well it suited our needs" he said. Two years ago when the Terminal Ferry Carbuncle won and One Park Gone West came fourth, there was extensive coverage. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/liverpool-wins-carbuncle-cup.html
They, at the BBC ran a series on name your carbuncle. Ed Thomas now on national BBC said it was great, it caused a sensation, tapping into something, the phone lines were on fire.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/09/museum-of-liverpool-runner-up-in-2011.html

"Which truly creative person would ever want to work in such a place?" The Guardian's Jonathan Glancey

A `crime against the built environment'… A `lack of urban vitality' are just some of the nicer things said about Peel Holdings' MediaCityUK site as it won Building Design magazine's Carbuncle Cup today – given to the year's worst building.
The sterilized Media City site even held off the squashed oblong that is the new Liverpool Museum to take the least coveted architectural prize in the country.

What Salford Star call MINGIN' MEDIA CITY

"…a city is the last thing one would mistake this development for"
http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=1084 You have to read the local opinion!!!!!!!!!!
They go on, on their firebrand style webspace that holds no punches and tells the truth.

Referring to the BBC's move to MediaCityUK, the Carbuncle Cup commendation states that "it is hard to see how the corporation could set its aspirations any lower… Following the Blue Peter garden's recent relocation to Salford, one can only presume that the newly reinterred Petra must be turning in her grave."

Yes, Peel Holdings' flagship "crime against the built environment" absolutely stormed the award for the worst building in the UK today. The jury - architecture critics, Rowan Moore of the Observer, Hugh Pearman of the Sunday Times and the Guardian's Jonathan Glancey – were unanimous in their verdict that the £600million Salford Quays site visually stinks.

The commendation states that Media City "had every opportunity to be a piece of city to be treasured for centuries to come". Instead we got "a crazed accumulation of development, in which every aimlessly gesticulating building sports at least three different cladding treatments. The overriding sense is one of extreme anxiety on the part of the architects - an unholy alliance of Wilkinson Eyre, Chapman Taylor and Fairhursts."
It adds that "There is no urban idea to speak of whatsoever - no space that one might recognise as a street; no common architectural language; no difference between the fronts and backs of buildings; no distinction between the civic buildings and the private ones…"
It concludes: "No-one can be too surprised that Peel Holdings…is behind MediaCityUK but quite how the BBC has stooped this low is hard to fathom..."

http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=1031

http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=1075

Media City community money scandal Part 1 and 2,(worth a read) http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=835

PEEL HOLDINGS, WHO HAVE SUBMITTED PLANS TO CARBUNCULATE WHATS LEFT OF THE LIVERPOOL WORLD HERITAGE SITE WITH ARCHITECTURE THAT IS EVEN WORSE THAN MEDIA CITY.

Then they are building Wirral Waters with abysmal style architectural, of crass design, of the same style, that has just found them awarded the Carbuncle Cup for.

Just look what they have done on Princes Dock already, turning it into MILTON KEYNES-ON-SEA http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/04/milton-keynes-on-sea.html

Further Reading

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/04/liverpool-malmaison-facade-is-falling.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/02/liverpool-waters-glass-pie-in-sky-we.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/09/liverpool-world-heritage-city.html

Liverpool City Council should take a long hard look on where they are spending our hard earned ratepayers money, though a decision has been put back until Unesco inspectors visit the Liverpool Waters site................all the warning signs are there already.

http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=838

Bethel Chapel Heathfield Road-Now Demolished, But Just What, Went On Under The Pulpit?

2011-09-14T11:32:00.000+01:00

I wrote this article up some time ago http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/05/welsh-presbyterian-chapel-heathfield.html as an ongoing attempt to save Bethel Chapel Heathfield Road Penny Lane Corner.
English Heretics refused to list it. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/welsh-presbyterian-chapel-demolished-by.html
It has now gone. Welsh Presbyterian Chapel demolished by Morons.
I was sent this article some time ago. There seemed to be a underlying feeling that all was not what it seemed. Was there something going on under the pulpit I thought?

Church sued for £600k

3 November, 2006
Property developers take a church in Wales to court after it pulls out of scheme
A church is involved in an unholy row with two property developers after being accused of reneging on a building scheme.

Property developers Samuel Beilin and William Kearns say they have lost more than £600,000 after the Welsh church encouraged them to spend money on a scheme to develop the Bethel Chapel.

It is alleged that after spending four years funding planning permissions and development schemes, encouraged by the Properties Board of the Calvanistic Methodist Church of Wales, they received a letter pulling out of the scheme.

The church, also known as the Presbyterian Church of Wales, plans to sell the site to another developer and is likely to win planning permission after the work put in by the developers.

Mr Beilin, Mr Kearns, and TRB Estates (Liverpool) say they have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on the scheme, and that the church pulled out of the project knowing it was likely the planning application would be granted.

Now the three are suing for “proprietary estoppel”, and are claiming damages for the loss of opportunity to develop the chapel, loss of profit, and for the expenses they have incurred.

They value their claim at more than £600,000, and are also suing Dr Benjamin Rees, of Bethel Chapel in Heathfield Road, Liverpool.
They had originally entered into arrangements with the church in April 2002, when the church asked them to develop the site. As a result they say they expected to be the developers of the scheme, and that the church encouraged them in this expectation.
Read more: http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3076478#ixzz0ntrc72K4

Now, A BANKRUPT city property developer along with seven other people were arrested in raids across Liverpool in connection as part of a fraud and conspiracy investigation.

Officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, backed up by Merseyside Police, arrested Sam Beilin, 49, as part of the probe.
His home address in Allerton Road and his offices were also raided.
The seven were arrested on suspicion of fraud, perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Marc Waddington writes. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/09/07/bankrupt-liverpool-property-boss-sam-beilin-among-seven-arrested-in-soca-fraud-probe-92534-29376966/

I am not suggesting for one second that there is anything wrong here, but there are questions to be asked. Starting with what is the, so called clergy, doing mixing with these characters?
And who paid the bill to knock the Chapel down surely it would have been the same cost to repair it.

All Saints Childwall-And The Pathetic Diocese Of Liverpool, Out Of Touch, Out of Reach.

2011-09-12T14:39:00.000+01:00

David Bartlett seems to have sold out, literally, his Dale Street Blues blog, has now become Dale Street Associates, giving a platform for his mates to put their ideas forward that would not usually be heard in the Daily Ghost.

Talking of Ghosts, heres one for you, there's a church in Childwall that has a spare graveyard that no-one will notice if the local Church Disease, ermm, I mean Diocese whack an extension of top of. And because those frocked types are all jolly good sorts no-one will object. Alleyuyha!
This time its Stuart Haynes for the church, on Bartletts blog, who gives us a misuided sob story about how those people who objected to the All Saints Plans, that were rejected by the planning committee, are standing in the way of the future. http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2011/09/if-we-are-to-preserve-the-past.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LiverpoolDailyPost-DaleStreetBlues+%28Liverpool+Daily+Post+-+Dale+Street+Blues%29

Only, its they, who got it wrong this time, over and over again they make the same mistakes.
How can you have such an out of touch regime as the Liverpool Church elders. Blaming everyone but themselves as usual.
Bishop James Jones was the Chairman of the Liverpool Echos, pitiful Stop the Rot Campaign, that saved nothing, someone should stop the rot at the Church.
http://www.liverpool.anglican.org/?p=34
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2008/01/08/bishop-of-liverpool-sued-by-bbc-100252-20325067/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/08/gayrights.religion

You may think, show a bit of respect here but my social contract with the local Diocese ended a long time ago when I attended a meeting at St James Church over plans to dig up 7000 bodies and build a block of flats on the churchyard. Poltergiest! St James Church Graveyard, a plague on your clergy's houses.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/st-james-church-liverpools-heritage-at.html
Are they all English Heretics at the Liverpool Diosese, or is it just the ones I meet. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/04/english-heretics.html

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/04/mad-hatters-tea-party-at-st-james.html
Here they usefacebook to promote Mad Easter Party at St James.

So at last a bit of common sense by the planning comittee rejecting the montsrous plans to pile concrete over some poor dead persons skull, laid to rest, probally paying for the privilidge, in peace and tranquility.
Amen to those plans. Perhaps it wll teach the local clergy its they that need to learn respect for those they have to protect.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/09/07/extension-plans-for-all-saints-church-in-childwall-rejected-by-liverpool-council-92534-29376801/ Bartlett had written about the planning committee rejection, where he probably met Haynes. a Church Spooksmen said
“We remain convinced that our plans presented a visionary approach that enhanced the historic beauty of All Saints with facilities that would continue to enable this growing church to serve its community"
Is Ricky Pansdown behind this he usually is behind any ill tought out scheme proposed by the church.Here is a letter from George Fowler highlighting his concerns that appeared in the paper some time ago.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/11/all-saints-childwall-disaster-waiting.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOeYuvVGDPE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childwall SAVE CHILDWALL CHURCH http://www.savechildwallchurch.info/

Where now for the Doicese of Liverpool, pray for them,will you, they need help.

In the meantime the powers in control wacked down the Welsh Chapel for a new era of..............being, a car park for Tesco.

GOD 'ELP US.http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/welsh-presbyterian-chapel-demolished-by.html

Liverpools Heritage Open Days

2011-09-09T12:36:00.003+01:00

100 historic buildings across Merseyside will be open to the public as part of the Heritage Open Days.

Williamson Tunnels, West Derby Courthouse, the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth and all Three Graces.

Unusual attractions include the Wavertree Lock Up and a tour of St Helens Cemetery.
Sir Edwin Lutyen’s Crypt on Saturday, September 17.
You can learn about the building’s rich history and enjoy a range of performances in a majestic setting.

FOR more information on booking details, visit http://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/

But remember we still have a number of properties on the at risk register.

St Lukes Church
St James Church

Royal Insurance Building Dale Street

St Andrews Church http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/08/st-andrews-church-rodney-street-call.html

Wellington Rooms http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/01/wellington-rooms-liverpools-disgrace.html
etc, etc, etc,
http://risk.english-heritage.org.uk/2010.aspx?rs=1&pn=1&crit=liverpool

Here is the list

Call this Regeneration.

Museum of Liverpool-Runner Up in 2011 Carbuncle Cup Competition.

2011-09-06T11:24:00.000+01:00

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/buildings/carbuncle-cup/mediacityuk-wins-2011-carbuncle-cup/5023838.article

After the original architect 3XN left the project in 2007, the £65 million waterfront building, which opened in July, was delivered by AEW.

Lowly Commended
Museum of Liverpool
Architects
3XN and AEW
Location
Liverpool

Liverpool secured the Carbuncle Cup two years ago for Hamilton Architects’ ferry terminal. This ridiculous building won in considerable part because of the damage it did to the view of the Three Graces — the trio of early 20th century buildings providing Liverpool’s defining architectural image.
Sadly, this vandalism to the city’s waterfront was only the start. This year the jury had the ferry terminal’s neighbour, the Museum of Liverpool, to consider. “Our first reaction was that you shouldn’t build here,” Kim Nielsen, the director of 3XN, the Danish practice responsible for its original design, has said. He should have trusted his first instincts.
However, the problem isn’t simply that the building is in the wrong place. Another prime example of decon lite — Hadid’s Maxxi being the all-too-obvious model — this was a voguishly banal design made considerably worse through its botched realisation. In a saga that saw the client taking legal action against both 3XN and its replacement, local practice AEW, the competition-winning project was subjected to multiple dumbings-down, the most cringemaking of which proved the introduction of a slalom course of DDA- compliant ramps at either end of the building.
The Museum of Liverpool came a close second in this year’s Carbuncle Cup but with work soon to complete on Broadway Malyan’s next door Mann Island development — the third of what Hugh Pearman aptly termed The Three Disgraces — Liverpool is in a strong position to reclaim the prize next year.

Salford Keys is the winner. Media City the new home of the BBC.
Peel Holdings the developer..................who want to build on what part of the Liverpool World Heritage Site has not already been carbunculated.

http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=1084 This is what Salford Star says

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/bbcs-new-home-is-named-worst-building-in-uk-2347839.html
The Independent
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8735595/BBC-building-in-Salford-voted-ugliest-in-Britain.html
The Telegraph

Livepool Daily Ghost..............nothng

Liverpool Oldham Echo...........nohing.

St Andrews Church Rodney Street-Call This Regeneration.

2011-08-31T11:37:00.000+01:00

How can a City watch a Grade II* listed building deteriate to such an effect that it is a shadow of itself.
Even the English Heretics describe its condition as "very bad".

The Old Presbyterian Church on Rodney St.
John Moores wanted to use this as a library and resource centre after it was on fire.
John Moores were promising to make it structurally safe and give it a fresh vibrant use. So the whole scheme was kyboshed, and the decay set in really hard.
Now at this precise moment there will be a load of shifty developers waiting for it to completely fall down

But now, as if to make matters worse, it has a shed on it.

Steve "Ronnie" Corbett at the waste full Liverpool Conservation (sic) Office wanted to store his garden tools and lawn mower on the top of it.
While Chris Griffiths the waste of space masquerading as the buildings at risk officer pots his geraniums up there of a weekend. It is a waste, an absolute waste.
This building was designed and built by John Foster Jr in 1823. The above picture what it looked like only a couple of decades ago. Its decline was swift.

Now this is the picture of St Andrews with Steve Corbetts potting shed on top. Is this a joke?
There should be laws against doing this to a listed building anyhow.
So what of Malcolm Kennedy and the new buzz word, Regeneration. (code for we are all working for Peel Holdings)
Where is all the puff powder PR going. The smokescreen.
Every day you read in the Daily Ghost more 'Plumping' about how well its all going, when in reality our some of our historic buildings are rotting. The Old Presbyterian Church on Rodney Street, now gets a shed, on its heavy ballustraded attic.

We lost the Welsh Chapel on Penny Lane corner recently
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/welsh-presbyterian-chapel-demolished-by.html But what of St Andrews listed Grade II* why has it been allowed to get into this state. Not a recent mention in the local press.
Peter Elson once used to be heavily involved in heritage matters!
Who is to keep a tag on the decay of our history?
Its not all about nicely toned sepia prints.
There are vital issues to be raised and those at the local paper need to "Get on Board" instead of inventing fights with Southampton over the Cruise Liner Cock Up Jetty, that the local press have held no-one accountable for, even though the current leader, of the city council, was wrapped up in it all, as part of Liverpool Vision. Our history is our future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Saint_Andrew,_Liverpool

http://www.walkingbook.co.uk/liverpool/ Here is a few more sepia prints.

SHEDS DIRECT GIVE THEM A CALL 0151 233 5623 ask for Steve Corbett or Chris Griffiths.
Further LPT reading
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/07/sheds-direct-new-architectural-craze.html

Strawberry Fools Forever-What Is Beatles History Really Worth?

2011-08-30T15:32:00.000+01:00

This weekend was the awful Mathew Street, piss up, I mean, Festival.
Where they now charge a fiver to get into, your own city centre.
Friends of mine come in to busk on Saturday and where threatened with a fine of a grand.
All they wanted to do was show off their musical talent for a little appreciation.
The Mathew Street Festival no longer belongs to the people of Liverpool.
They, the city council, have now taken over and are systematicaly destroying the essence of why it started.
At least when it first started, the drunken clouts were confined to Mathew Street and now they are all over town. It is a sickening sight. I couldn't think of a worse and more crude way to spent a Bank Holiday than watching Amy Housewine (yes thats her stage name) and all the other tribute bands that now ply their trades, that were gathered together by the organisers, in a lazy fashion, with little or no real intelligent thought, for a sort of musical jamboree that showcases little of Liverpool.

Meanwhile they are removing, if they have not yet done so, the gates from Strawberry Fields.

Well, We knocked The Cavern Club Down so why not take all the originality out of the city.

Is this the first step to their sale, or even worse being given to Liverpool Museums to make a full set along with Manchester Dock Gates that survived the Luftwaffe's onslaught.
Interestingly we have just commemorated 70 years of the blitz.
Some people just cant leave well alone.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/10/beatles-strawberry-fields-gates-removed

Is this Strawberry Fools Forever. Or is someone at the Sally army who own the site, where the gates stand, getting feeled up for a few quid?
Who planted the seed in the field and why isn't our courageous Conservation Officer Steve (Ronnie) Corbett doing anything about it. Yes we know they were taken once, but they were returned they were so hot, they could never be sold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Fields_Forever

Is Eel Scales Herr Director of Miserytravel going to buy them and turn them into a Miserytravel bus stop, or cut them into four at a cost 4.2 million pounds and then tell us its great for toursim and he saved them. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-did-merseytravel-spend-42-million.html
Or is he trying to get his hands on the yellow submarine and cut that up.
Where is the yellow submarine that was once at the International Garden Festival anyway.

So last week the Old Sailors Home gates are returned http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/08/henry-pooley-gates-return-can-we-have.html and placed next to John Lewis in Grosvenor-Pool making a new use of the term "Gated Community".
So we lose one set of gates and gain one set.
Its always one step forward and one step back in this city. HELP!

The Lyceum Bold Street-A Whopper Job Well Done!

2011-08-26T11:13:00.000+01:00

I was astounded when I walked past the Lyceum at the bottom of Bold Street some weeks ago.
A giant Whopper a ten foot burger in a bun had been placed on the window of Burger King right next door.
Incensed I wrote the the conservation officer, Steve Corbett, who is a waste of time in all matters of heritage, and then decided to bypass him by going direct to Joe Anderson the council leader.
I told him that we cannot allow this sort of tacky advertising to go on and advised him that this flagrant breach of planning law was setting a rather bad example, well it was a bloody outrage really.

Anything that affects the setting of a listed building or is in a conservation area(unless its the Pier Head conservation area, then they do what they like) requires a planning consent. here is my original post from the 21st June
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/06/lyceum-bold-street-liverpool-how-can.html

Fair enough Uncle Joe has delivered and the city councils enforcement officers have told Burger King the 19 externally applied vinyls have to be removed.

I think this constitutes a success.
A historical Neo Classical building by Thomas Harrison of Chester.
Our grand old lady can now rest without the harrowing juxtaposition of a Giant Whopper slapping her in the face.

Burger King have also been told that any applications for any similar advertisements on the same elevation would not be welcomed or indeed tolerated.

The City Council has also warned Burger King, that, if the advert was not removed formal prosecution would follow.

Another Hacking Scandal-Right In Front Of The Liverpool Conservation Officers Eyes.

2011-08-23T16:13:00.000+01:00

It started some while ago, a complete lack of disregard for history.
Those concerned slowly become ignorant to the law, and the law lets them get away with it. Because they were the law.

A subculture unfolded, where no punishment is dished out, there may even be advice given directing people how to get way with it.
Those rioters did no damage compared to the Liverpool planners and their property developing councillors.

It started, with Trevor and Doreen Jones, so said Private Eye, who wacked down the last Ships Chandlers on the Strand, next to the Baltic Fleet public house. They downed it on the Saturday after a listing application was received by the council on the Friday.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/superlambanana-land.html
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/undeclared-interest-of-jones-vote.html

Lady Doreen Jones was the then chair of the City Planning Committee. What a scandal.

Then it was 6 Sir Thomas Street, they, of Iliad, the developers, seemingly quite cosy with the city council, sent out a team of ignorant little hackers with jack-hammers to smash up the frontage, carved Liver Birds and all. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/heres-one-they-did-earlier.html
The task to smash off the façade……right under the window of the then council leader Warren “War Zones” Bradley, who said “I wondered what all the noise was”.
This happened while awaiting the visit of an English Heritage Inspector. It now looks like a pigs ear.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2011/01/layla-hotel-liverpool-destroying.html

Then the arrogant Maghull Developments smashed off the façade of Josephine Butler House when, guess what awaiting a listing visit from the English Heretics.
Hahnermann House had received a Grade II listing that we applied for, hours before a planning committee decision to develop the site with a horrendous extension.

Mike Hanlon would tell me later on “You did us a favour there, with Hahnermann House”.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/04/liverpool-preservation-trust-11-13.html
He did himself no favours in destroying JBH as all the fluffy duffys were out in force declaring it a national disaster. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/httpwww.html While they dont give a hoop to anything out of Hope Street.
JBH is now credit crunched. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/03/03/100m-redevelopment-of-liverpool-s-hope-street-is-the-latest-victim-of-the-credit-crunch-92534-23047723/

Still, in the Baltic Triangle, see above picture the same old, same old is happening.
Despite them telling us the Baltic Triangle will become a Cultural Quarter. Not quite sure how you get a triangle into a quarter?
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/liverpools-baltic-triangle-to-become.html

Its a Culture of Facade Hacking more like. Some things never change.
I drove down Bridgewater Street and there was a cherry picker and hackers at work, twatting off yet another facade, nothing changes. Its not listed. Steve Corbett says it has architectural merit though.....and thats about it.

Here's the sketch, smash the façade about on any given property, its a tried and tested method, and it looks a mess and then claim its an eyesore and then an otherwise decent building is downed and hey Presto! a Jerry Build goes up for half the cost. Hacking scandals, Liverpool is full of them
There are already plans for next door. 3, 5 and 7 Bridgewater Street.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/04/57-9-bridgewater-street-up-for.html

The Conservation Officer is a waste of time, I even get the feeling he has to be aware of it all, as no-one in the job of Conservation, in my opinion, can be so thick, or so behind the times, well apart from John Hinchliffe the World Heritage Waste of Space that stands by and watches the WHS be decimated.
Not sure if the both of them are deaf and dumb because they never hear anything and never say anything. On the rare occasion they do stutter some rubbish its usually wrong and misguided. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/08/heaps-rice-mill-grade-ii-listed-and.html
Heaps Rice Mill will be down next.

While Malcolm Kennedy, the Council Cabinet Member for Regeneration (code for lets help Peel Holdings destroy the WHS) appointed by Frank McKenna, I mean Joe Anderson, tells us how wonderful it all is.

Regeneration or Degeneration, another hacking scandal, this time, half a mile from what we are told, is a booming Grosvenor-pool.

Call This Regeneration? Liverpool Lime Street A Disgrace.

2011-08-22T11:28:00.000+01:00

Regeneration, Regeneration, Regeneration.
We even have a Regeneration Officer (Code for lets help Peel Holdings) by the name of Malcolm Kennedy.
Those in charge of Regeneration seem to concentrate on all the easy jobs while the old stock falls down.
The Futurist, that's Ironic, is a mess, left to rot while being so close to the world heritage site it may as well be in it.
Last I heard it was being left to fall down by Neptune Developments who wanted to develop the site. On one end of this block we have the Grapes (this block is next to the Adelphi) and the other end the Vines, both listed buildings because of their architectural merit.

While we are being spoon fed about Liverpool's (false) new dawn those in charge of Regeneration watch while whole blocks lay in decay. Is it a tried and tested plan. Let it fall down, the city council wont use their powers to have the building kept in a good state of repair. Then the developers claim it is in such a bad condition that the only thing to do is knock our historic pieces of architecture down and then build a modern block of flats. Just to the side of this is the Grade II listed ABC Cinema that those Urban Splash people said they were going to restore ......and then didnt, is rotting away.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/ldpbusiness/business-local/2010/03/22/urban-splash-reaffirms-commitment-to-liverpool-lime-street-and-southport-s-pleasureland-92534-26081951/

As is Littlewoods on Edge Lane that we saved from demolition, only to see it lay empty.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/07/there-was-scheme-to-relocate-school-in.html

If only those in charge of Regeneration really were genuine and sincere in the job in hand and stopped dodgy developers in this city letting our historic architectural stock fall down by serving them repair notices.

The Henry Pooley Gates Return-Can We Have The Sailors Home Back Too?

2011-08-18T12:38:00.000+01:00

I stumbled across the unveiling ceremony this morning for the Henry Pooley Gates which was part of the old Sailors Home that was demolished in a savage act of civic vandalism when the building was, in not too bad a state of repair.

They were just about to pull the curtain and it was fair turnout.

Now I am getting sick of people harking on about the past, yes I hear you thinking, what are you saying, but it is true that once the past has gone, what can you do about it?
Me and my valued colleagues at the LPT have fought for the future not the past.
But, I am sick of looking at old sepia tints and listening to people with a sad lamentation of what we once had...........while doing nothing about it.
http://www.liverpoolmonuments.co.uk/gates/pooley12.html
The Dockers Umbrella crowd don't seem relevant to me anymore, harking on about how we lost a little treasure, that in reality was an eyesore and was falling down and needed demolishing anyhow.
If you cherish your past you will have a good future, of that I am sure.
We fought for the future, and preserving what we had was to have been our goal, look at the World Heritage site destroyed and weep.
Those Heritage Wallers waffling on about our history while too lazy to do anything about it are of no use to themselves, they will, of course, be out in droves when the last surviving carriage of the Dockers overhead railway is put in the new museum.
We tried to save the Manchester Dock Gates from a act of vandalism by of all, the Liverpool Museums, who are supposed to protect our heritage. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/manchester-docks-obliterated.html
They are now promised, by the Museums Director to be restored and placed in the new Museum of Liverpool. Lets see, shall we, after the very museums, JCB, smashed them to bits.

So, on a personal note is it a good thing or a bad thing that the Pooley Gates now seem to look out of place next to John Lewis and appear as a monument to a past tragedy that should never have happened?
Should I be thinking is this a good thing that we have spent a fortune reinstating them while care homes close and those inner city's re-ignite?

This picture was taken 1oo yards from the newly reconstituted Pooley Gates last night, as there were more riot police turning out to protect our streets from those vandals who have no respect for property.

While their city council trashes their own areas such as the Welsh Streets, creating Warrens "War Zones".

Is this a new use for the term "Gated Community" where we become a heritage theme park while a hundred yards south the Heaps Rice Mill a listed building lays rotting, and the Police protect Grosvenor-pool and the Dukes Fiefdom.

50 yards the other way, past the awful looking Liver Street Car Park, that the last Unesco mission of 2006 described as truly bad, where the memory of the Mole of Edgehill, is insulted with a awful bit of Jerry building, by a drunken bricklayer, if that's what you could call him, as it is, an insult to drunken bricklayers.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/08/here-lies-mole-of-edgehill.html

But its alright the local press say so.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/09/alan-weston-of-liverpool-daily-post-is.html

While over in Duke Street the rot continues, while Malcolm Kennedy, Liverpools cabinet member for Regeneration (code for Peel Holdings) and Joe Anderson will be today taking the plaudits for the Pooley gates while doing nothing for the Wellington Rooms or St Andrews Church.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/11/boy-stood-on-burning-deck-picking-his.html

I cant make my mind up really, it seems on balance they are better being there, just, even if they serve as a monument to a horrendous past mistake and provoke thoughts of how Liverpool, as a city, is continuing in the same heritage tradition of showing disrespect for its past.

Liverpool Looting Their Own Community?

2011-08-15T13:45:00.000+01:00

And its looting by the very council officials that are now empowered to clean up the "War Zones" that they trashed in the first place with a lack of respect and disdain for the people in their own area. You wont find this in the local press who turn the disturbances into an advertorial for Grosvenor.

A Council boss who described government cuts as "severe" and "daunting" received more than £2,000 a day for 39 days' work - equivalent to an annual package of more than £400,000.

Ged Fitzgerald, then new chief executive of Liverpool City Council, received salary and pension contributions worth £80,936 between February 7 and March 31 this year, according to the local authority's accounts.

The accounts also show that the outgoing chief executive, Colin Hilton , received £113,175 in salary for just two months in April and May last year.

Hilton also received £30,000 as "compensation for loss of employment" and a bonus of £26,396.

Eric Pickles, the local government minister, last year called Liverpool council "out of touch" after it advertised for a new executive at £197,000 a year - £50,000 more than the prime minister earns.

When told of Fitzgerald and Hilton's pay this weekend, Pickles said: "Good Lord. They had said they would be paying less to their executives."

Shortly after joining the council in February, Fitzgerald spoke publicly of the "whirlwind" he faced as the tried to balance the local authority's books.
"I don't think anybody really knew the size and severity of the challenge that we had around our budget," he said. "I literally .... sat in my office of the best part of a monthly with a calculator where only the minus button was working. It was very, very challenging.,
"I have every sympathy for all the members of staff .... It took us a lot of working through to balance the budget, and £91m out of a usable amount of £400m was a really big, daunting challenge".

A spokesman for the council denied that Fitzgerald was earning a salary of £400,000 a year, but was unable to confirm the true amount.
Matthew Sinclair director of the TaxPayers Alliance, said: "These eye-watering pay packages at Liverpool city council are a disgrace at a time when there is so much pressure on the finances of the council and the families who ultimately pick up the bill.
Taxpayers should not be asked to accept austerity on the front line but still see a gilded age in full swing in the town hall."

Colin "Cover Up" Hilton who was hand picked by Mike Storey and Warren "War Zones" Bradley should be paying a fine for the mess he created as Chief Executive allowing a billion pounds European Objective One Funds being squandered.
All three of them were responsible for the Cruise Liner 'Jetty' Cock Up and the trashing of the World Heritage Site...........And whilst not condoning the disturbances what has happened to these people for allowing the destruction of huge areas of Toxteth such as the Welsh Streets.