Strawberry Fools Forever-What Is Beatles History Really Worth?

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

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. 

Lewis's Its Our Story; Liverpools Own-BBC Take An Interest

Radio 4 did a programme, aired this this Monday http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b010m2f4/
Roll out all the usual John Belcham suspects, to turn a blind eye to it all and make a living talking about the disasters after they have occurred, whilst doing nothing about it at the time. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/10/liverpools-world-heritage-steering.html

Lewis's lost its way in the 60's really and never recovered through the 70's by which time it had a ugly tiled mural which now seems to be the centre of attention to the sentimentalists.
 http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/02/lewiss-is-to-close-300-jobs-to-go.html
It does touch on the fact that Grosvenor-pool The Duke of Westministers fiefdom has seen it off for good.
Merepark the developers swing into a PR oportunity but it will never be the same again, it will soon be carbuncled. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/02/now-lyceum-of-bold-street-is-to-gets.html
People talk in the programme about the epicentre being moved and claim Liverpool is the same as any where else now.
Windsor Developments and their dodgy facilitator Trevor Jones was all over this area like a rash.
Is it time to move on now.......not for the people who were done out of their redundancy by the rat who owned the store up until it closed who had to have a body guard to visit the last time.

English Heritage did list it knowing about Merepark's plans several years ago.
It survived the Blitz but not the Riechmarshal Nigel Lee our Chief Planning Disaster and his dodgy Liverpool planning Junta.

Same Old Liverpool-Same Old Second Rate Reporting.

It is alarming when you read an article fom Olivier Shah working for the Times, although she gives us a mention, it is obvious she has never been to Liverpool and has done her research by Google.
You may have to click on the article to read it which is paywalled so I have taken a picture of it.

The Mole of Edgehill-They Are Digging Him Up Again.

Is someone trying to get their own back on the Mole of Edgehill for digging their ancestors garden up.
First they proclaim a memorial for him, albeit a tacky and shoddy one and now they dig that up. http://www.sevenstreets.com/city-living/feature-city-living/paradise-street-williamso/



Is there a new Mole of Grosvenor-pool?
Not content with the original disturbance of a graveyard site, it seems they are back again for more digging. Maybe they should have done the job with more careful planning.
Grosvenor think they dont need planning permission, being arrogant enough to erect without a planning application on Chavasse Lawn.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/08/here-lies-mole-of-edgehill.html

And they should think about building with less shoddy workmanship.
For a lot of people this area is now the first port of call, right into John Lewis car park and out again which you can just about see in the background.

Wouldnt you think with all the profits Grosvenor are making they would do a proper job.....first time around
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/09/alan-weston-of-liverpool-daily-post-is.html

One Park West Residents Complain Of An Eyesore-The Barefaced Cheek Of It.

 The cheek of that, we have to look at the monstrous One Park Worst that came 4th in the Carbuncle Cup award for 2009. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/building-designs-carbuncle-cup.html

 Here is what Mark "Padding it out" Waddington has to say.

OWNERS of luxury flats in Liverpool One’s One Park West development claim the tone of their “glamorous” area is being lowered by “vulgar, tatty” amusements outside their windows six months of the year.

Read More http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news//tm_headline=residents-of-8216-glamorous-8217-liverpool-one-flats-hit-out-at-8216-vulgar-8217-winter-festival-site%26method=full%26objectid=27754016%26siteid=100252-name_page.html#ixzz16xc7JIsd

To call this development glamorous....where does he live.

Inspired by a greenhouse the Widnes tech on speed inspired design(sic) has brought the most ugly looking vulgarity to Liverpool's World Heritage Site.

Padding goes on

Some of those who bought the plush properties – worth up to £500,000 – have objected to permission being granted for food and drink stalls, the 60-metre North Star fun ride, an ice rink, toboggan run, and band stands in Chavasse Park in the run up to Christmas.


The reality is that the place has been plumped out by the tragic event of the crane collapsing on a apartment in the Baltic Triangle. So most of them overlooked an eyesore anyhow. What about the three black coffins on Mann Island surely they have noticed the mess at the Pier Head.

The firm behind One Park West was keen to stress it was only a minority of residents who complained, but accepted it was “difficult to please everyone”.

Well the fair is bad, but isn't this like the kettle calling the pot black. One Park Worst.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/one-park-west-voted-one-park-worst-by.html

Is this another publicity stunt.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/one-park-west-balloons-arrive-for-group.html

The reality is the same is to be said of Church Street. Who organises this tat?

And is it Paul Du Noyer complaining? http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/one-park-west-and-carbuncle-cupthe.html


Did they complain when they dumped the tacky 'Give Peas a Chance' Statue on Chavasse Lawn?
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/10/peace-monument-unveiled-for-john.html

What does the Hilton Hotel chain think?http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/liverpool-hilton-opens.html
 
 
I think they have got what they deserve myself now they know what its like for us who have to look at them.

Grosvenor-pools New Water Feature-Or Just Shoddy Workmanship

 Not even 2 years after opening the shoddy work shows. Chavasse Lawn had the worlds press for the unveiling of the abominable "Give Peas a Chance statue", but the reality is the jerry builders who built it have made a mess. Not quite up to the job, inferior materials, and it was not a difficult task in the first place, to knock a few shops up. Maybe they were trying too hard, trying to get too much out of it, greed. To build on Steers Dock reported as the worlds first was always to be controversial but to build a car park on it was damn right disgusting. To raise it 40 foot in the air and cover it with polystyrene was damn right tacky, to cover it with grass that wont grow is a con. It could never last it was poorly thought out and badly constructed. Where is the water going to go...........out through the nearest exit, is where. Now every time it rains the new steps overlooking John Lewis spew out water and they have to be closed. Its a big job to correct this.

They cant get the grass to grow because its waterlogged and a constant, con, I mean job is to pretend it is growing. This combined with the silly idea factory that is the Grosvenor-pool team to do silly things like turn it into beach then it rains every day seems stupid at best.

So it was all 'tarted up' for the worlds media to be sold a dog of a statue Saturday last. Is it just me that sees it like it is, aparantly not.  http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/10/peace-monument-unveiled-for-john.html Take a look at the Seven Streets site.  http://www.sevenstreets.com/blog/give-peace-memorial-a-chance/ and their take on the Giant Pea statuee on Chavasse lawn. Considering the now famous One Park Gone West apartments that came 4th in BD the architects weekly Carbuncle Cup Award in 2009.  http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/one-park-west-balloons-arrive-for-group.html His Fiefness the Slim White Duke isn't doing very well really. He got the land for sod all, the first brick built dock, and he cant even respect it. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/one-park-west-voted-one-park-worst-by.html

So in order to carry out all the gimmicks, like a beach with a big wheel ect, they drive 40 ton wagons over it. The public footpath, or is it public, is closed more than its open. 

Built on the site of the Old Customs House how things have changed. The Council keep spinning it out, listening to the Flintstonesque speech Joe Anderson did on Sky, Saturday last about the Pea statue, you have to say it does not look good in the long term. So the result is,

Liverpool One, Shoddy Workmanship Four. 

 http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/06/old-customs-die-hard.html 

http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/10/grotesque-addition-to-grosvenor-pool.html

Alan Weston of The Liverpool Daily Post is Let Out The Office...Blindfolded.

Months after the event and after a tip-off from..... Grosvenor he writes; A LONG-AWAITED memorial garden has taken shape at the edge of Liverpool’s busiest shopping district.

The site, on the outskirts of Liverpool One, is rich in historical significance, as it includes part of the former St Thomas’s Church graveyard.
Among those buried there is one of Liverpool’s most famous sons, Joseph Williamson, popularly known as the “Mole of Edge Hill”.
After his death in 1840, Williamson was laid to rest in the Tate family vault at the church, which was demolished in 1905.


http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2010/09/09/new-memorial-garden-for-joseph-williamson-created-by-liverpool-one-92534-27232794/

Here is one we did earlier about the quality of respect of a memorial to the Mole of Edgehill. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/08/here-lies-mole-of-edgehill.html

Or was he really let out or just read a press realease. He waffles on;
The centrepiece of the garden is a carved stone replica of the Liver Bird which once adorned the Sailors’ Home in nearby Canning Place.

The original red sandstone carving stood over the entrance to the old Sailors’ Home, which was demolished in 1973. It is hoped the original Sailors’ Gates will be placed at the entrance to the garden if the council can secure their return from Birmingham.
The home was paid for by ship-owners and merchants to provide a cheap place to stay.As well as being a safe haven for sailors, it boasted a savings bank so seafarers could keep their cash safe, a post office and billiard room. Amateur historian Stephen McKay said: “The actual sailors’ home as a building marks the start of Liverpool as a world-class merchant port. It is very good news that, in addition to the replica, the original Liver Bird is to feature in the Museum of Liverpool when it opens in 2011.”

Its dead easy just print what Grosvenor want you say to while ignoring the real news Mr Weston.

The Sailors Home one of the tragic acts of vandalism in Liverpool's long line of heritage wrongs. The ridiculous idea to bring back the gates to Liverpool should be squashed immediately along with the ideas to think that after abandoning them we will now look after them.
This is what they did with Manchester Dock gates.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/manchester-docks-obliterated.html

Round Up All the Usual Suspects, To Turn A Blind Eye To World Heritage Disaster in Liverpool.

Last nights BBC programme where Jonathan Foyle explores northern Georgian and Victorian neo-classical civic buildings.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tnw4p/Peoples_Palaces_The_Golden_Age_of_Civic_Architecture_NeoClassical/

I used to feel so proud whilst watching this sort of programme, even while we were in a economic mess. Now they just annoy me.
Round up all the usual suspects to have their say. The milksop Joseph Sharples, a bag of nerves who has the intelligence after updating Pevsners guide but does nothing with it. Or does he? I walked away from him last time I saw him on the Strand and he told me he admired the Cesar Pelli Carbuncle, One Park Worst!!!!!!!!!!!
Then they trundle off to the Bluecoat using the shot so the camera cannot see the carbuncle behind it.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/11/liverpool-novatel-tragic-addition-to.html
Interviewing Lawrence Westgaph, a heritage fighter, who says what he thinks, about slavery. He's also a fighter of other sorts having just escaped manacles himself.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/bluecoat-tradgedy.html

I find it hard to start off a programme about Civic pride in Grosvenor-pool but there you go.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/liverpool-one-they-have-stolen-our.html
This is the place they buried the first purpose built dock under a multi story car park. They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot.
Oh excuse me for being pedantic.

He then turned his attention to Thomas Harrisons Lyceum that Florence Gersten had the foresight to save from demolition that is now threatened with a carbuncle behind it. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/02/now-lyceum-of-bold-street-is-to-gets.html
At St Georges Hall, You can forgive Steve Binns because he cant see the mess that has been created of late.

They did not visit the Pier Head to see the mess there in the world heritage site.

This was a not very well updated version of the Gavin Stamp programmes some 5 or 6 years ago.
Good old BBC.

Here Lies the Mole of Edgehill.

What is the difference in the two images above?

One is a picture of a Vase designed by Geoffry Baxter for Whiefriars in the 60s...called a Drunken Bricklayer

And the other is a wall surrounding a memorial site for a graveyard built a couple of weeks ago by a Drunken Bricklayer

Not all agree those chaps over at Sevenstreets like it.

http://www.sevenstreets.com/city-living/feature-city-living/paradise-street-williamso/

They say So completely has Liverpool ONE reshaped our city’s geography that it’s hard to believe Paradise Street doesn’t end at the Sony Centre. But, underneath the newly chiseled granite, the old city streets still stubbornly remain. And, such is our desire to reinvent ourselves every generation or so, precious little of our history ever rests in peace.

In fact, it’s not just the old streets you’re walking above. In one spot, you’re actually standing on the resting place of giants…
going on they say.........SevenStreets has heard a rumour that the original gates of the Sailor’s Home (the only remaining fragments from this fabled, long-lost Liverpool landmark) are to be returned to the city – from their current home in Smethwick, Birmingham. The gates feature the first ever cast Liver Birds.

So, tread carefully. For, just a couple of feet below this beautifully serene spot, with its driftwood, lavender and maritime plants, lies a man who’s been known to tunnel himself out of the trickiest of underground situations…
I think its a shame that such a shameful piece of Jerry-building has happened, its like Grosvenor has given up because there is no money in it. So here lies the Mole of Edgehill..........not a fitting tribute really.

The Bluecoat- And The Destruction of Herbert Tyson-Smith's Studio.

I had an owner of a business in the Bluecoat in my shop yesterday trying to sell me an Arthur Dooley, which looked more like an Arthur Do-one.


He is closing down his shop at the entrance to the Bluecoat. “The new Dawn we were promised never really got started” he said. It’s a shame. His shop wasn’t brilliant but it’s sad to see any small shopkeeper go out of business. This was something I discussed in great detail with Winifred Robinson of Radio 4’s You and Yours programme while we were recording a piece for her programme. She asked if Liverpool was in danger of turning into a theme park. pic view from the Bluecoat garden and Tyson Smiths studio still laying vacant after it was dismantled and.....homoginised to suit the new plasticity.

Grosvenor-pool is now the new name for Liverpool. It seems that we now see the wholescale footfall change that now sees areas of the city empty. The wasy that paradise street was. Lets hope its not another case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/video/2008/apr/02/the.bluecoat   I came across this Guardian video that I recall being filmed. Alistair Upstart was in full swing playing up to the cameras….he was bussed in for Capital of Culture famedom, where is he now. After cocking the whole essence of what our grand old lady was, an architectural legacy a little worn around the edges a bit frail on its feet. Then with him at the helm it got a fake botox and a silicon implant or too and makes itself a skeleton of itself. Like some old scouse mutton dressed up as lamb. Now two years later the implants have sagged, the lips have creased, she is now a poor and feeble shadow of itself and proof that beauty is only skin deep. The thick skinned vandals who destroyed its character include David “Fuzzy Felt” Fleming who should have been on the board of Starbucks he has opened more coffee bars than they have in the last 5 years. The only problem being every time he opens a new one some of our culture is moved out to allow it.

Alistair talks about Yoko Ono’s wish tree that was reconstituted in the garden. I wish they would have left it alone these vandals have destroyed the character of a great old friend of mine. I would often sit in the garden.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/11/liverpool-novatel-tragic-addition-to.html

There is a section on the video of a woman who opened up a handicraft shop making necklaces out of old buttons. I recall thinking at the time what would the aficionados of culture make of this as an emblem of 2008. Incidentally does anyone know who is European Capital of Culture this year, thought not? It was only us who got wound up about it. The full reality is the Capital of Culture that turned into Culture of Capital ruined the Bluecoat. The regeneration that seen the garden ruined, to what, by any stretch of the imagination, could only be labelled vandalism, also saw the grand old lady get a carbuncle behind it that shows exactly what we know about culture….stuff all because no cultured city led by cultured people, hello Warren, would commit such an act of vandalism that makes me angry every time I look down School lane. Arthur Dooley a man who I look back on and admire whilst not liking all of his art. Who campaigned to allow Liverpool artists to hang their work on the Bluecoat railings will be turning in his grave. It got hit in the war. It was rebuilt after the blitz and then the Reich marshal Nigel Lee and English Heretics under the stewardship of Simon Thurley http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/07/english-heritage-dumber-and-dummer.html  get hold of it and they have ripped the gubbings out of it so it is now a silicon plastic pad out of itself. I liked it better the way it was.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/03/bluecoat-tradgedy.html
And to think Herbert Tyson-Smiths sculpture studio (intact) was destroyed to make way for this…………and two years later its still empty.

A History of the World-Two Rival Cities

Broadcaster and writer Stuart Maconie takes a wry look at the rivalry between the two great northern cities of Liverpool and Manchester through historical objects .They've both been at the heart of developments which have shaped the world, and their economies have been interdependent. Yet everyone knows Mancs and Scousers hate each other - but why?


Stuart discovers that the roots of the rivalry are buried centuries back. The cities didn't lock horns when they were puny youngsters. They waited till they'd built themselves up into giants, then had a showdown which literally tore a divide across the North West, and left festering resentment which persists to this day. Broadcast on:BBC One, 7:30pm Monday 17th May 2010 Duration: 30 minutes Available until: 7:59pm Monday 24th May 2010 Categories:Factual, History


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00sj1fd/A_History_of_the_World_A_Tale_of_Two_Rival_Cities/

More mischief making by the BBC spreading rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester.
http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/03/take-on-two-cities.html Correspondent had made a mention to it when it was reported in the Times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article7075464.ece

The programme talks about Liverpools, well the first Dock in the world, now Chavasse Park. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/building-designs-carbuncle-cup.html The Dock is buried under Grosvenor-pool........realy clever that turning the worlds first wet dock into a car-park.
They paved Paradise......and put up a parking lot. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/one-park-west-balloons-arrive-for-group.html
It continues with the building of the Manchester Ship Canal to bypass Liverpools port. Exactly what Peel Holdings are doing again.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/07/liverpeel.html

I cant help thinking that if Manchester had of owned a world heritage site they would not have carbuncled it.

Warren Bradleys Liverpool War Zones.

There are a few bloggers that we admire in their forthright and honest no-nonsense approach and one of them is Correspondent from the "blog roll" on the right hand side. Scribblings Jottings and Musings.   http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/ He is a seld styled Correspondent.
 I wish he was working for Trinity "Smoking" Mirror group he would not allow himself to be institutionalised. Its best if we keep on the zone with the finger on the pulse and this is not a bad stop for a liitle truth now and again in between the advertorial world of Trinity "Smoking" Mirrors .
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2010/04/26/council-leader-warren-bradley-we-ripped-heart-out-of-liverpool-communities-100252-26317085/ Yesterdays Daily Ghost (will someone put the old dog down its riddled with arthritis ) did a spin which we all know about but Correspondent spells it out which I have reprinted below. 
The picture I have used was taken in One Park Gone Worst at Chavasse Park, (entitled "I tell them that big") which came 4th in BD magazines Carbuncle cup, defering to the winner the Terminal Ferry Carbuncle.  Here Warren Bradley is talking to John Prescott who came up with the ideas, to rip the heart out of huge communities, and call them New Heartlands. Did he question him about his sick idea? http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/search/label/Elizebeth%20Pascoe
No he chatted about his proudest achievement, which was....Grosvenor-pool. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/02/grosvenor-pool-putting-co-into.html
Well considering he was mentored by Clever Trevor and Doreen who live on the Duke of Westminsters estate, what do we expect. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/09/trevor-jone-steps-down-good-riddance.html

Warren's War Zones
Election campaigning continues apace. Yet amidst the bombast, bluster & bullshit, there are disconcerting sounds of, well, not contrition or remorse exactly, more like an embarrassed clearing of the throat, a muffled sigh, a sotto voce aside.
Home truths are beginning to be acknowledged by those whose state of denial has been so deep as to be subterranean. Wayne has long pointed out how, inter alia, the disfigurement of the city's waterfront blocks the view of the Three Graces. The response until now has varied from an embarrassed silence to an exercise in juvenile name-calling. However, the pretence is starting to slip & Wayne expertly dissected its threadbare nature earlier today  http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/04/mann-island-is-penny-finally-dropping.html
.

Another area where the Fib Dem council is inching dangerously close to a mea culpa concerns housing. Warren Bradley blurts out the obvious to David Bartlett in this morning's Oldham Echo  http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2010/04/26/council-leader-warren-bradley-we-ripped-heart-out-of-liverpool-communities-100252-26317085/  
Bartlett is moved to observe that Bradley's comments are "frank". Well, yes & no. It certainly puts the Fib Dems' Bread & Circus approach to the city in a stark context hitherto ignored by Oldham Hall Street. However, it also seeks to deflect at least some of the blame onto Whitehall & the quangocracy: "The council, national government and (regeneration agency) English Partnerships probably bit off more than we could chew.
"We announced six renewal areas, and in hindsight we should have done it one by one. Completing one area and then moving onto the next."
Bradley's tactic is totally transparent, admit mistakes, but imply that Labour & English Partnerships are at least equally culpable. This is election time, don't forget.
The man who is to local history what Jeremy Clarkson is to cycling goes on to deliver some choice comments which act as incriminating evidence in the case against the Fib Dems' reign of misrule in the city:
"You can't rip the heart out of the community and promise them something in 15 years time.
"I just don't think it is correct, but we are where we are. We have now got the job of rebuilding communities and giving them reassurance.........
"We should have landscaped areas so that people didn't feel they were living in a war zone".
That's some self-confessed record of ruin to play at the voters, isn't it? As well as the civic vandalism of what's still mystifyingly called a World Heritage Site & inflicting Grovesnor-pool in the process, Bradley & his cohorts have neglected whole neighbourhoods not fortunate enough to live in the city centre or in Fib Dem wards. The war zones have been left to fester.

Well said Mr Correspondent hope you dont mind me borrowing your well written and direct to the point text.

This is the same bloke Warren Bradley who said,  Prince Charles told him it was all great and the regeneration in Liverpool was marvelous. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/07/warren-bradley-you-are-not-very-clever.html When David Bartlett was presented with a letter from Prince Charle's private secretary to the contrary he hushed it up, shame on you Larry Bartlett, shame on you. You are worse than Larry Neild.
See Warren talking about Liverpools waterfront that under his errr...leadership was destroyed http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/02/warren-bradley-talking-about-liverpools.html

Mates with fellow fire-bobby, the disgraced, Steve Hurst http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/09/councillor-steve-hurst-steps-down-good.html
Its all OK our heritage is fine, they even write the stories for the Oldham Hall Street Brigade.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/11/liverpool-city-council-are-liars-and.html

Grosvenor-pool-Putting The Con into Confidence.

I will today leave you in the capable hands of Correspondent not much local gets past this blog. It is well worth reading on a regular basis. Click on the link below. http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/02/putting-con-into-confidence.html Their post is called putting the Con into Confidence. They pour scrutiny over the local papers and its relationship to manipulate the news to suit the opinions they hold...without scrutiny. The Oldham Hall Street brigade dont do, scrutiny. Day in day out they seem to just print what they are fed by the council. They do not wish to involve themselves with news from heritage campaigners. It is the relationship with Grosvenor-pool and the City Council, who have given a third of the city centre away, which comes under the microscope of Correspondent. The top brass and by top brass I mean Clever Trevor Jones http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/09/trevor-jone-steps-down-good-riddance.html  and Mike "spin me another one" Storey who, without scrutiny, manipulated Warren Bradley into power. They have basicly given the land away with no public scrutiny of the lease details. Oh and talking of Con, Trinty “Smoking” Mirror Group who have just bought out the Manchester Evening News. Headline; ONE CRAP PAPER BUYS ANOTHER. Thats good news for Peel Holdings. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article7020351.ece

The Banalization of Liverpool

The Banalization of Liverpool

By Paul Robinson

In all facets of the city (and I imagine in all cities of the country) banality is demonstrated, conformity is rampant, there is no new milieu, just the reclassification of old principles. People are still scared to leave plates in the bedroom for fear of what other people might say. In the surge toward cosmopolitanism, we forgot to watch our backs as tedium crept up and snatched our wallets.

                                    ***
The new build sought only to conglomerate existing structures, not to threaten. The new tenements, espousing inner city living, are bland reconfigurations of brick and mortar, indemnifying the unity of the moneyed. No architectural rebellion, no challenge to the skyline or the eyeline has been implemented. No Liverpool revolution, only dash renovation to make room for transportation of citizens in and out of the city. The city must be rejected, it's edifices denounced.
                                                                                    ***
There has been no significant artistic movement for over half a century. The Merseybeat legacy has jammed new pathways in music and poetry: in music we look to continental Europe and America for inspiration, bringing back mere imitation; in poetry we pack no unified punch, no “wah! wah!” or hand jive, no imprisonment, none willing to commit poetic crime. Creativity frequently requires penury: contentment strangles creativity, reducing artistic purpose to a diversion, pastime or hobby. Investment is not a requisite for creativity. Where is the avant-garde Liverpool breathing artistic fire? A vision we must will to transpire, otherwise the monotony of reality will lock us up and throw away the key. The artist must reject the city.
                                                                                    ***
Originality is confined to subterranean hideouts, radicalism is a shop, protest is the new spectacle, no adventure or defiance stands-up in the crowd, no artistic infection that can revolutionise our town. Flash clubs and bars act as fashion parades, places for courtship serenades, the weekend providing destructive escape from the working days gone, and those to come, that mash us into the ground.
                                                                                    ***
Klimt cannot reclaim the city for “artists, lovers and poets”, nor continental tender, nor transmutation, be it lamb or banana, nor movement or scene be reared on gossamer dress, yet the throng will tread in ignorance sublime, ploughing through reactivate buildings assembled from hurried cement.
                                                                                    ***
A new expression must be seeded, a new artistic ideology needed, the old guard thrown aside, the sewers and the backyards opened to see what can be found. No care should be given to national trend, we should cut our own path through the earth, wear what we want, think what we want, create the profound, a new subterranean art that eschews pound, terrifies the classes and reclaims a Liverpool lost to contaminated investment.
                                                                                    ***
Let starved cars choke the roads, pedestrian streets be deserted, let litter festoon retail doorways, window displays wither until dead: the emphasis must be shifted. Let Liverpool create it's own masterpiece, let the domestic screams of Grafton street be condensed into artful streams of consciousness, let the river drown the town hall and absolve the Capital enshrouding our culture. Within a few years Liverpool can become a hub of progressive chaotic excellence saturated with artists, poets, musicians and lovers, reclaimed from the dull misery that we have been intravenously fed. The city must be rejected.


Paul Robinson Poetry http://www.paulrobinsonpoetry.co.uk/

Liverpools Baltic Triangle to become a Cultural Quarter.

Not sure how you make a Triangle into a quarter, not sure if Pythagoras had an equation for that. What I am sure of is this is another slice of Regional European objective fund that some cosy developer will have his finger in the circular pie. Have I heard all this before, yes, all the same promises, a couple of hundred yards away, over in the ropewalks that turned out to be a load of new empty apartments and new bars for the kids who live in the town centre to swill away their weekends. I attended a talk by Bill Maynard at the then Moat House Hotel, in the now defunct Paradise Street. (as it has not even got a name plate up and is now been absorbed into Grosvenor-pool). Urban Splash were the experts at grabbing grant money from the public purse. This was over 10 years ago and all the same old same old is being rolled out again. We have to be a bit more imaginitive than bars shops and hotels. Oh what happened to all the promised culcha?
The recent press release from the North Vested Interest Development Agency says.
The Baltic Creative scheme, which its creators say gives the city a "once in a lifetime" opportunity to develop its creative sector, will see four buildings off Jamaica Street refurbished to house creative and digital businesses.
Regeneration officials say the creative sector will be vital to Liverpool’s economy in the future and hope the new centre, funded by the Northwest Development Agency and the European Regional Development Fund, will house more than 60 businesses.
Yes I have heard that before.
Kevin McManus, director of Liverpool Vision’s creative support body Merseyside ACME, says Baltic Creative will be a home for growing creative firms in the same way that Liverpool Science Park is for hi-tech companies. Yes
He said: "We want a mixture of sole traders and small and large companies. We want to see a lot of collaboration and innovation, that puts Liverpool on the cutting edge of the industry. Oh Yes.

"Liverpool’s future is creative and digital. We want to have some of Liverpool’s great creative and digital firms in there – maybe visual artists, designers or musicians. This will be a space where people can spark off each other and collaborate – all the things they should be doing at the moment.
"We have to support businesses that are going to grow and bring money and jobs to the city." True Right, but you have been saying this for years.
Mr McManus said there has already been "a lot of interest" from firms wanting to move into the buildings. The industrial units include the one used by the New Picket music venue. Next to the garage that houses the amfibious yellow tour machine that ramps into the Albert dock and great fun was had by all.  
They will be run by a newly-formed "community interest company" called Baltic Creative.
The funding includes £3m from the NWDA and another £2.2m from the European Regional Development Fund. It covers the cost of leasing the buildings from the NWDA on a long lease and refurbishing them, as well as running costs for at least three years until Baltic Creative can stand on its own two feet financially through rents it brings in.
So considering you get for 5 million pounds of European slush money these days half of a Terminal Ferry Carbuncle. What chance.
"There’s still lots of work to be done. Getting the buildings is just the start," said Mr McManus.
You bet.
The Baltic Triangle is already home to the Contemporary Urban Centre and the new Elevator Studio complex, itself home to creative firms including design studio Milky Tea.
Jenny Douglas, head of city centre at Liverpool Vision, said: "The area is beginning to emerge as a vibrant business hub, with a real mix of activity from old established businesses to new cutting-edge concerns but we need to sustain this energy.
"It’s vital that creatives are in the heart of the city and not left on the edge and these plans for the Baltic Triangle will help support and increase the vibrancy by attracting new companies, new ideas and new connections." Heard it all before.
Music venue The New Picket moved into the Baltic Triangle area in 2005 and its venue director Phil Hayes has been "at the vanguard" of efforts to transform the area into a creative quarter.
He welcomed news of Baltic Creative and said he wanted to see the area cleaned up to become more welcoming to visitors.
Mr Hayes said: "What’s important is that the local organisations are at the forefront of this cultural area. It has got to have a uniqueness about it. That can only be maintained by unique organisations being based here."
NWDA chief executive Steve Broomhead said: "Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle area presents a unique opportunity to develop a natural network of creative businesses in one location, building on the strong creative activity already under way in the area."

Yes the Picket was forced out of its home and Phil Hayes recently received a phone call from the new owners of the Hardman Street premises asking if they wanted to buy the building. Its still empty.
Then they give us a picture of the artists impression of the new creative quarter thats in a triangle...which is not very creative and you think here we go again. You know we don’t stand a chance. The NWDA has wasted hundreds of millions of pounds ruining the world heritage site while 1 mile down the road where Louise Ellman lives is in the worst state of decay and has been for the last 25 years while she has stood by and watched.
Oh and what happened to all the previous promises from Windsor Developments who were the so-called buyers of Lamb & Sons that was owned by those that left us a hole in the ground next to the Baltc Fleet pub http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_headline=-1bn-baltic-triangle-project-collapses&method=full&objectid=18893190&siteid=50061-name_page.html Doreen & Trevor Jones.  http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_headline=-1bn-baltic-triangle-project-collapses&method=full&objectid=18893190&siteid=50061-name_page.html
This article put together by Larry Neild who now works for the remnants of Windsors press agency October communications. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/08/knock-me-down-with-feather-its-clever.html

Liverpool One-They have Stolen Our Streets.

And that's not my words but that apears to be the view of the architect of the recent redevelopment of the Bluecoat.

BDP’s masterplan for Liverpool One may have impressed the architects who drew up the Stirling shortlist, but Hans van der Heijden, architect of the Bluecoat arts centre next door, says its chief aim was to foster a feeling of disconnection with the rest of the city. “Liverpool One does not have a wall. Its wall is invisible, but yet it is clearly marked by the stylistic discontinuity of its architecture,” he tells Anna Minton in her new book Ground Control. Minton’s experience is little better. “I could have been anywhere in Britain or America with a high-end shopping centre… although I had been told the design of the complex faithfully followed the original street pattern, I couldn’t see any street signs.”

So we are made to feel grateful that they have been given a third of the city centre and then they nominate themselves for a Stirling Prize. http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/5209267.article Yes it is nominated by RIBA architects and with 26 different architect working on Grosvenor-pool they have effectivly nominated themselves.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/10/12/favourites-for-the-riba-stirling-prize-92534-24905793/

Yesterdays Daily Ghost (the Oldham Echo now arrives at 7.30 a.m its only a matter of time) had a full two pages by Vicky Anderson whose partner is involved in the architectural profession, maybe he was working on the Bluecoat desecration? But hey! we never heard a bad word about it in the press. Only how good it was from people who dont understand the way the erosion of our cultural identity and its historical architecture can be so comprehensive. So when an Architect who destroyed the Bluecoat with a crass renovation led by English Heretics, leaving it a limp and lifeless space, with a ruined garden, talks about Liverpool One being bad, well we know for sure, we have got a Trafford Park in the city without a roof on. And the backslappers at RIBA want to tell us how great it is......well not for me thanks. They have destroyed the world heritage site with the carbuncle on Chavasse Park that is One Park Worst. They can never be forgiven for dumping that on us. Grosvenor-pool. A city squatting within a city.

They have stolen our streets and given us a new St Johns Market, Yes thats about it.

Was European Capital of Culture the Worst Thing That Ever Happened to Liverpool

When I started editing this blog it was with the vast amount of frustration that both myself and my trusted colleagues felt, that set the tone. In being truthful and honest to what you believe it is more than necessary within this city of spivs and shysters to step on a few toes. There were a lot more spivs at work than I first thought, and you know who you are. I have also met some of the most truthful people whom I respect and admire. Who have fought for things that they believed in at their own time and expense, to try their best to save the essence of a town set upon by uneducated idiots who did not care one hoop what they left behind on their journey to retirement in Spain or some other exotic location a million miles away from Liverpool.
After fighting the planning process for some time now, trying to defend the degeneration of the world heritage site, fighting for principles we hold dear I have come to the conclusion that the Spivs have won and it is all over par the embarrassment of having to live in a city with such a lack of culture that it destroys its best asset in the year labelled as European Capital of Culture for all to see.
Imagine if you built across the Taj Mahal or the Sphinx or the Pyramids.
Please spare me the "City should not be kept in aspic" PR stunt that was taken from the programme Coast where the presenter was talking about the World Heritage Site Jurassic Coast being full of people. This was then lifted to suit the PR firms and bandied about by all at Liverpool Vision relaying it to everyone so it would stick they knew this was the line that would sell the developments to the public through the press. Imagine if they had built three blocks of flats across the Pont D'Avignon or the Palace de la Papes it is unimaginable. You would never get it past the public. But this is Liverpool.
I thus conclude in my personal opinion that 2008 is the worst thing that could have happened to Liverpool in its recent history.
It sent the whole carpet-bagging regime that descended on the city for a European Culture of Capital fest. Or Capital of Vultures, whatever. We all know we needed a few more shops, we all know we needed some redevelopment but to destroy the very thing what made you that held you together, that gave you pride, is plain stupid.
A respected architectural journalist for a national said to me "Wayne, why does Liverpool always shoot itself in the foot"
This is something I have had to live with all my life through darkened days when Liverpool seemed to be at the point of no return. I recall the slogan daubed on a wall in frustration 'Will the last one out of Liverpool please switch off the lights".
I was working in Lodge lane when the riots were on I was a property developer in the Derek Hatton era and now I deal in art post 2008. A small individual unusual business the thing that the city should be cherishing not a homogenisation that looks like any other town. We are heading for a Grosvenor-pool within a Tescopool. I can find the same shops anywhere, what about unique-ness and individuality.
We had a blank canvas to weave some magic in with the old.
I was recently asked "Do you like any new building that has been built in the last ten years". This was levelled in a way that I should, and there was something wrong if I did not, that I was somehow stuck in the past. Having studied modern architecture "Le Corbusier died decades ago" I declared "In order to understand the question you have to know that what we now call modern is in fact 70 years old built with inanimate materials such as steel and glass".
It is a real shame that we have been over-run by the carpet bagging Spivs and the uneducated people who have allowed this to happen should hang their heads in shame. It breaks my heart to watch and understand that we have created so little out of so much.

Grosvenor-pool the new name for Liverpool.

Are Grosvenor now running the City Centre.
It is now stated that Grosvenor have bought the old Rapid Hardware and Rapid have now moved to the old John Lewis store as part of a deal. Rapid used to be claiming the biggest shopfront in the city, this will now be broken up. (Incidentally Larry Neild used to be Rapids publicist I was informed with a direct route into the local papers).
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/08/20/liverpool-one-developer-grosvenor-buys-old-rapid-hardware-site-100252-24490295/
I see no evidence presented with this article as to price or land registry details of completion so there is a chance that the kid who wrote it just packaged a bundle up for a Grosvenor PR company or the council. Alistair Houghton wrote; Grosvenor’s projects director Guy Butler said Grosvenor had no firm plans for the site itself but was talking to two interested parties about their "exciting plans" for it. What did they buy it for then???????????
Time will tell what they are talking about. But will they let another big retail centre happen?
WILL IT BE A TESCO? Was there to be a new Central Village planned in this area? So what has happened to that?
What is happening here is with the centre of power changing and a new footfall being found in the city centre, It seems Grosvenor are now able to dictate to the council outside of Grosvenor-pool by owning the land around their existing gifted domain. Are they now taking over the city.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/03/13/180m-liverpool-central-village-scheme-set-to-start-in-autumn-64375-20617750/ Time will tell.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2007/11/08/lewis-s-store-at-heart-of-30m-liverpool-development-64375-20078760/
Liverpool has seen so many small independent retailers and business's go to the wall.
First we had the city centre dug up for years to facilitate Grosvenor who opened up their new retail empire at the start of the biggest recession since the 30s and it now seems they are able to dictate any new developments that threaten them. What happened to all those fledgling businesses in the old Quiggins.
If you read the local papers with its current attitude everything is rosy but below the surface so many mistakes have been made turning our city into something that resembles any other with its homogenisation of the retail. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/08/24/public-supports-liverpool-city-centre-s-new-retail-revolution-92534-24514174/ It is easy to level weighted questions at the public and make headlines. We all know we needed a few shops but what is the need to keep on day after day publicising all the big businesses while small businesses go bust on a daily basis. They dont have PR budgets. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/02/22/use-us-or-lose-us-plea-by-lewis-s-bosses-64375-20509063/ It needs something a little more clever than the kids at the local papers who are caught up in the whole retail therapeutic experience and have entered a 'culture' at the local papers where shops are king and shopping is the answer to all our dreams and desires. It really is not.
I run a small business and it has been tough recently, there are others who cant sit out the next few months like Grosvenor, with their huge resources.
But what about the future look of our city. One journalist down at the Oldham Echo recently asked another. "Do you know anything about Architecture and World Heritage"
"No but I will find someone who does"
So she phoned the pathetic world heritage officer John Hinchliffe and wrote an article that was so far unbalanced as to amount to be covering over the mistaken decisions to destroy the Site, that it was an anachronism of the truth..
IN ORDER TO BE REPORTING CULURE IT WOULD HELP TO BE CULTURED. YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND IT. IF YOU HAVE TO PHONE A FRIEND IN THE LOCAL PR FIRM..........IT IS NO GOOD PRETENDING. Our future is being put on a PR platter in front of our very eyes and is being lapped up by the public, but hey we can always go shopping.

One Park West The Balloons Arrive for a Group Hug.

IS THIS A DESPERATE PR STUNT?

Todays Architects Journal carries a headline
Beauty or Beast: Cesar Pelli's One Park West Liverpool
18 August, 2009 By Richard Waite

The huggers want to show that, despite the recent nomination for an architectural wooden spoon and for generally ‘getting it in the neck’, there are people who still care for the 326-apartment, boat-shaped block. So who’s right?
BEAUTY
Speaking about the scheme, Pelli said he wanted to ‘to create a modern, striking building, a memorable place to live, with exceptional view of a wonderful waterfront and park’. Meanwhile Guy Butler, senior development manager at project backer Grosvenor, described the prowed block as a ‘building design which has really stuck its head above the parapet and has, without a doubt, vastly improved an area of our city centre which was formerly wasteland.’
BEAST
David Dunster from the Liverpool School of Architecture said it boasts ‘one of the nastiest looking pieces of standard office glazing since Britain was bombed by the Luftwaffe; and cheap.’ He added: ‘The prow can only be a ghastly reference to Liverpool’s maritime past and conclusive evidence that all architects should be banned from the use of metaphor, simile or metonymy in the next 100 years at least.’

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/beauty-or-beast-cesar-pellis-one-park-west-liverpool/5206890.article


Also Building design run a story too http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3147077&origin=BDdaily

So the PR company seem to be earning their fees and most of the crowd seem to be made up by them and Grosvenor staff. They even tried to get the BBC reporter to wear a badge. "I cant do that he said I work for the BBC.
Then they brought one of the blokes who said he worked with Cesar Pelli.....with a megaphone to direct the 50 people. They had been hoping for 150. I think they did well to get that many people as the six who were not getting paid to be there.

Councillor Miller with his new found friends, schoolkids bussed in for the occasion to make up the numbers. His letter in yesterdays Daily Ghost.
A negative few
DESIGNED by Cesar Pelli and stabbed in the back by a small group of internet surfers on a website, One Park West is bold, modern, thought-provoking and in the right place and definitely at the right time.
Liverpool One is up for the Stirling Prize by the same website, yet one of its iconic buildings is being lambasted by the negative and disgruntled few.
The Pier Head Ferry Terminal has also been drawn into the same nonsense. I personally love its positioning, style and seamless linking of old and new, including its proximity to the Three Graces, the new canal link and the fabulous new museum.
Liverpool is an amazing world- class city and we should all congratulate Merseytravel for their bold new Ferry Terminal and Grosvenor for transforming the city centre. They helped create almost 5,000 new jobs, while bringing iconic retail outlets, a fabulous new Hilton Hotel, a stunning new Chavasse Park and, of course, a great place to set up home in the bold design, that is One Park West.
Cllr Gary Millar, Executive Member for Enterprise and Tourism, Liverpool City Council
Not quite sure who stabbed the building in the back Mr Miller who asked me did I want a badge, I declined.

Well it has been said that the standard of this piece of, well if you could call it architecture is more suitable for the preferences of a 10 year old.

http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/tree-huggers-sue-for-copyright.html
Paid for by Grosvenor they rolled them out at Park West Worst for this desperate PR stunt. A colleague of mine went on facebook to check out how its all going and the organiser of it is http://en-gb.facebook.com/jvolpfletcher. She works for a PR company called ThinkPublicity http://www.thinkpublicity.co.uk/ and guess what (if you can stand the annoying website) their clients are Trinity Mirrors Group, Grosvenor and they launched the One Park Worst opening evening. They say they launched LDP the Liverpool Daily Post Business Club.....they say at the launch for Liverpool.com and they are pleased to be associated with Trinity Mirror.

They also have as clients Negresco and a couple of other Guttman enterprises who seem to always go bust and recently went bang and caused outrage when the same owners opened up the same week further down the same road in Lark Lane.

http://www.liverpoolconfidential.com/index.asp?Sessionx=IpqiNwEiKaqjJWAqNwB6IaqiNwA

WHAT A DESPERATE ACT BUT I LEAVE IT WITH ONE FINAL COMMENT LEFT OF FACEBOOK.

Nick Wensley (Liverpool) wrote at 12:07
I'm in work then too... Do they not understand our great home is supposed to look like a ship? Explaining that would make all the confusion and bad feeling evaporate i'm sure!

followed by another comment

This building is supposed to look like a ship ? The Titanic comes to mind. No bad feelings or confusion, it is truly awful and should sink without trace. Are there enough lifeboats ?