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updated 19 December 07
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our ground news 2007
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News in 2007
The future of Liverpool Football Club's
newly approved stadium and the future of Anfield's historic listed park
is now to be reconsidered by American owners. According to today's Liverpool
Echo, scaled down options to build on the existing public football pitches
of Stanley Park will be decided in the New Year.
18 December 2007 - more
The future of the Garden Festival Site,
including the public open space along Otterspool Promenade, is the subject
of a Public Inquiry which resumes on 7 January. Liverpool Council planners
are recommending that Promenade land is given over for the Festival Gardens
development early in the New Year. To date, no agreement has been made
between the Developers, Langtree McLean, and the City Council as to the
definitive boundary of the leases.
13 December 2007 - more
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Leaseholders
responsible for dereliction of Garden Festival Site - Inquiry reveals.
After three weeks, it is clear from the Public Inquiry that Liverpool
City Council want to allow a large scale new development on the former
Garden Festival site - in order to secure a new park as a legacy of 2008
to be funded by the developers Langtree McLean. As part of the scheme
the tree lined Otterspool Promenade will be urbanised and dominated by
7 high-rise “finger-blocks”.
Leasehold tenants of the Garden Festival site have been held responsible
for the, much criticised, dereliction of the site. Agreements to control
the state and maintenance of this prime site have not been enforced by
the City Council, who own and lease the land.
The maintenance of the leaking sea wall is another issue that has not
been adequately resolved. Sea water is passing into the contaminated land-fill
beneath the Festival site.
Council leaders want to create a splash with a new park for 2008 and
with the oriental gardens as its focus. This is not a smoke screen to
conceal the fact that many other parks and green spaces in Liverpool are
being lost to private building schemes but is to create a "new gateway"
for the city. A new gateway to be built on treasured open green space
and makes a clear statement that a culture of property speculation will
be at the heart of Liverpool’s legacy for 2008.
The 7 "finger-blocks” are master-planned to tower from the
inner core of the development - extending through the wooded embankment
towards the promenade. These blocks will have a significant physical and
visual impact and with 3 stretching over what is now a public grass embankment
– a spit from the coastal footpath enjoyed and loved by many.
Will Liverpool's news media reflect on its support of the scheme to
build "finger-blocks" to replace Merseyside's only tree lined
promenade and for influencing public opinion to accept the cynical marketing
strategy of developers?
The 67 acre Garden Festival site is planned to be split in various
parts: the Southern Grasslands, a central gated park next to 1308 high
density 1 & 2 bed apartments and 7 "finger-blocks" containing
66 luxury apartments. None of the dwellings will have gardens or ground
floor living spaces due to health risks of contaminated land.
The Public Inquiry resumes for concluding witnesses at 10:00am on Monday
7th January at Blackburne House, off Hope Street, Liverpool.
25 / 27 November
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Developers
mislead Council - planners say confusion over boundary will not stop Promenade
land give-away
The advertised disposal of public open space along Otterspool Promenade,
for the Garden Festival development, has been delayed over plans submitted
by Langtree McLean which were found to be incorrect. It emerged at the
Public Inquiry that three “finger-blocks” are intended to
be built to cover a larger part of the promenade than plans suggest and
that the City Council had been mislead by the developers as to the extent
of additional public land required.
Since the Inquiry recess on 16th November 07, it has been revealed
that some parts of the fence around the Garden Festival site is not included
in the Langtree lease and is a barrier to land that should be part of
the public open space along the promenade. However Council planners are
recommending that the disposal of this public land should go ahead and
approved at an early Executive Board meeting in 2008 - probably on 4 or
18 January.
This public promenade land is part of the grass and wooded embankment
that runs along the River Mersey walkway. Otterspool Promenade starts
by the Britannia Inn and continues south east adjacent to the Garden Festival
site. This is currently the nearest undeveloped coastal green space (Green
Wedge) to central Liverpool.
Objections to the disposal of the public land adjacent to the
former Garden Festival site on Otterspool Promenade should be addressed
to: Colin Green, Development Team, LCC, Municipal Buildings, Dale Street,
Liverpool L2 2DH - email colin.green@liverpool.gov.uk
On the 28 September, when the disposal of public land was discussed,
at the Regeneration Select Committee the Chair's opening remarks referring
to the Garden Festival Site were that "Any development on this site
would be better than what has already happened over the past 20 years".
19 December
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Public Inquiry
for Festival Gardens scheme
The Secretary of State decided to call in the planned scheme to re-develop
Liverpool's former Garden Festival site and requested a Public Inquiry.
Inquiry dates are 30 October to 16 November 2007 and resumes on 7 January
2008 at Blackburne House, Liverpool at 10am.
The Secretary of State wishes to be informed about the extent to which
the proposed development on the Festival site meets Government Planning
Policies which includes: Delivering Sustainable Development and sustainable
communities, Housing Requirements, Nature Conservation and Planning for
Open Space, Sport and Recreation.
It was on 1 April that about 100 people first met at Lark Lane Community
Centre to voice concern about the large scale tree felling and other changes
taking place in and around Liverpool's Garden Festival site. At the meeting
it was agreed to establish a new Garden Festival Campaign and to formulate
an action plan to protect this Green Wedge and remaining woods.
On 15 April supporters of the Garden Festival Campaign held a "protest/celebration"
on Otterspool Promenade next to the Garden Festival site. Within three
hours over 400 visitors signed letters of objection to LCC against the
development on the site. A further 950 letters were sent to the NW local
government office.
Since 2004 Langtree McLean have worked closely with the Council to present
the current application to build 372 one-bed apartments, 936 two-bed apartments
and 66 townhouses.
Since 1996 the Festival site has been closed to the public and became
a flourishing unplanned nature reserve until November 2006 when contractors
moved onto the site to remove the domed Hall. By March 2007 thousands
of trees were felled. Many 25 year old Turkey Oak trees, a variety specially
selected for a maritime climate and planted as saplings for the Festival,
have been cleared in areas marked for thinning. The Council's planners
have supported all the tree felling that has occurred on the site.
For more details from Liverpool's Planning Committee regarding plans
for the Festival site see the
Printed Minutes from 21 May and also the Case
Officers Report PDF, listing objections received and answers
given. The Planning Committee rejected the Commission for Architecture
and the Built Environment's findings that, "...the housing proposals
are flawed and that the vision underpinning the development of the public
park is weak." See CABE's
report here.
Parts of the area occupied by the Festival site and Promenade is known
as the historic "Cast Iron Shore" where ships once unloaded
iron ore for cast iron smelting. This industry was run by local man who
lived in nearby St Michaels Hamlet where he built the famous cast-iron
church. Reclaimed land from the Mersey estuary was later used for an oil
storage terminal before the whole area was used for several land-fill
sites for industrial, chemical and domestic waste. Substantial landscaping
transformed the area into the first International Garden Festival in the
UK, open to the public during 1984. The site was then leased to Wiggins
and used as a commercial leisure park until about 1996. Plans to build
on the site in 2001 and 2002 failed.
Campaigners hold regular Wednesday open meetings at Aigburth Cricket
& Bowling Club next to St. Michaels Railway Station at 6:30pm.
19 September / 25 November
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November 2006
May 2007
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Stadium on Stanley
Park - back to the drawing board for "New Anfield"
Liverpool City Council recently agreed to plans for a £300m American
style stadium to be built on the historic Stanley Park in Anfield. To
seat 60,000 but for a structure to potentially seat up to 78,000. These
plans are now to be reconsidered by the football club owners for a dramatically
scaled down stadium.
The football team manager has told club owners that £150m, half
the building costs of the new stadium, is needed to invest in football
players for the continued success of the club. New cost-effective architectural
plans are being drawn up for a less ambitious stadium to open in 2011
- 2012.
Previously agreed plans were to build a futuristic stadium stretching
the length of this Victorian park and were to incorporate a Community
Partnership Centre to replace the sports centre on the site.
Houses on Anfield Road have already been demolished to make way for
the new stadium. Agreed plans also include changes to the remainder of
Stanley Park - see next item.
There is also an outline planning application for the redevelopment
of the current Anfield ground to be replaced by a hotel, offices, shops,
community uses, houses and a small open space. It is the Council's intention
to sell the existing stadium land to LFC for £2.5 M.
Revised designs for Liverpool's £300m football stadium, New Anfield,
were unveiled on 25 July along with submissions of planning applications
to the Council. Further expansion for up to 78,000 seats has always been
dependent on improvements to the local transport infrastructure - namely
building a local railway station on an existing line.
It is planned that "Stadco" will become the new company set
up by LFC to lease the park land from the City for 999 years for an initial
rent of £300,000 pa. - the going rate for a brown-field site of
this size in Liverpool.
Residents were mislead during the consultation process for earlier plans
as they were told that a new stadium would be linked to improvements in
the rest of the park when separate funding was already in place for restoration
- see next item. For details on this previous consultation
see the 2004 Community
& Stakeholder Consultation Report PDF
Many of the houses between Stanley Park and the area surrounding the
existing football stadium are being emptied and demolished under Compulsive
Purchase Orders for "Regeneration".
Reported widely in the national press on 6 February was the news that
funding for the stadium was secured by the take-over of Liverpool Football
Club.
The Friends of Stanley Park oppose the commercial development on the
public open space of Stanley Park.
18 September / 19 December
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Impact on Victorian
grade II listed Park
The plans for the new stadium site will have an impact on the rest of
Stanley Park and includes leveling large areas of the remaining park with
landfill. Plans also involve creating new straight pathways and clearing
trees to help control the flow of football fans.
LCC's Planning Committee met on 28 September and have recommended the
go-ahead for the restoration of Stanley Park and the re-construction of
Gladstone Conservatory / Palm House. At the meeting the Chairman of the
Friends of Stanley Park objected to being cut short in presenting their
case for amendments to the restorations. These restorations are also funded
by Objective 1 and there will be some urgency to complete as much of the
work as possible before the December 2008 funding deadline.
21 September
Funding is lost for Stanley Park restorations over stadium delays
Liverpool's Executive Board agreed that the regeneration and restoration
of Stanley Park is interlinked with a Joint Venture Company agreement
between Liverpool Football Club and the Council. Because of this new agreement
and delays with plans for a new stadium it now means that part of the
£5 M. European Objective 1 funds, allocated for park restorations,
will be lost. The Objective 1 fund has to be spent and activity completed
by December 2008.
LFC will manage security and CCTV surveillance around the stadium,
the Conservatory and the rest of the park. Compass Contract Services have
been invited to make proposals to run the Conservatory as a catering facility.
Previous plans to include a visitor's Centre appear to have been dropped.
A new proposed sub-committee consisting of representatives from LCC,
LFC and Anfield Breckfield Partnership Forum will consider how the restored
park and open spaces of the Anfield Plaza will best serve the community
and regeneration.
Previous plans to restore the park with £7 M. funding from English
Heritage was withdrawn after the Council gave planning permission to build
a stadium on the park.
The Friends of Stanley Park hold open public meetings on the third Wednesday
in every month (except on match days and then meet on the following day)
at the Hillsborough Lodge also known as the Visitor's Centre, on Anfield
Road near the Palm House at 7:30pm.
21 September
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Millbank
Playing Fields
Plans to develop Millbank Playing Fields for a new school building was
discussed by Liverpool's planning Committee on 18 September. The site,
allocated as Green Space, lies between West Derby Lane and Bankfield Road
and includes the Peter Lloyd Leisure Centre and car park. This is an outline
application seeking to establish the principle of the development on the
site only.
On the 14 May 07 the application was considered by Anfield, Tuebrook
and Stoneycroft Neighbourhood Committee which agreed that the use of playing
fields was totally unacceptable in this densely populated area. For full
details see the
Case Officer's Report.
21 September
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Sefton Park
Renovation
The Friends of Sefton Park are concerned about the current tree felling
proposals in the park. They are also concerned about the apparent breakdown
in the consultation process with the Council and the planners. As part
of a consultation process the last meeting was held on 3 February which
included planners, stake-holders and Friends of Sefton Park.
The Friends were responsible for the initial proposals which lead to
a £4.8M English Heritage grant to revitalise the park. Major renovation
work is due to start in the park later this year and is scheduled for
completion in 2009.
Designs and notices of the changes can be seen inside the Aviary Café
situated in the centre of Sefton park. The café and the area around
it will also be re-developed. See the Council's Sefton Park web
page for the Spring issue of their "quarterly"
newsletter.
The Friends meet regularly at the Old Police Station on Lark Lane.
22 September
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Friends of
Walton Hall Park
The Friends of Walton Hall Park Committee embrace a wide range of user
groups within the park as well as inviting various professional bodies
to help improve and maintain the park's facilities for the wider community.
The meeting on 27 July was attended by representatives from: Council staff
from both Parks and Sports, Liverpool's two angling clubs, Liverpool Loop
Line and the Liverpool Charity & Voluntary Services (LCVS).
A representative from Liverpool Loop Line, part of the National
Cycle Network near the Park, was concerned by the large amount
of rubbish tipping on the cycle path by local residents.
A representative from LCVS invited local groups within the Ebb Valley
to apply to his organisation for grant aid to help finance community projects
concerned with general environmental improvements in the area.
The Friends meet in the park's Sports Centre and all who live within
3 miles of the park are welcome to attend - meetings are normally held
on the last Friday in the month.
5 August
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Liverpool
Parks Friends Forum
The 3rd Liverpool Parks Friends Forum, with representatives from "Friends
of Parks", was held at Croxteth Hall on 9 June.
The meeting started with an introduction of Liverpool's "Park Strategy"
given by Council Officers. This document was adopted by the Council last
autumn and is expected to be published later this year after various scrutiny
meetings. One of the key headline themes of the strategy is community
involvement and to "respond to the concerns and needs of the citizens
of Liverpool and visitors". To help facilitate community involvement
the Council set up the "Friends of Parks" forum group at the
end of last year.
At the meeting a structure for a "Liverpool Parks Friends Forum"
board was finalised based on electing two representatives from each of
the five neighbourhood areas within Liverpool. Future forum and board
meetings will now be independent of the Council but Officers agreed to
help facilitate these meetings.
Before the end of the meeting each of the neighbourhood representatives
were asked to list both good and bad characteristics of parks within their
areas. The majority of complaints were concerned with vandalism, under-age
drinking and drug taking. Other negative points were more specific to
different areas and included: taking public park land for private building
projects, problems with Glendales (the contractors for maintaining parks)
including a lack of adequate tree planting to replace felled trees, a
lack of information about funds or fund raising and a lack of information
about other "Friends" groups.
On the positive side, most all areas reported various community and
cultural events taking place in parks this summer. Other good points were
specific to different areas and included the successful "Hooked on
Fishing" kid's scheme and various sporting facilities available in
some parks.
11 June
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Town or Village
Greens
The
Commons Act 2006 changes the legal definition of a town or
village green. This came into force on 6 April 2007 and sets out the qualifying
circumstances in which land may be newly registered - click here for more
details from the DEFRA
web site page.
12 April
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Princes Park
The Friends of Princes Park have recently been given a grant from "Awards
for All" to help involve local people with the park - news on plans
to follow.
8 June
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Dixie Dean
Playing Fields
The Dixie Dean Playing Fields in Everton has been at the centre of a
recent public inquiry. An application to register the Playing Fields as
a Town or Village Green was opposed by Liverpool City Council. Dixie Dean
is the proposed site for the North Liverpool Academy.
The inquiry's inspector recommended that the Council does not register
Dixie Dean as a Town or Village Green under existing law* The inspector
also concluded that renting pitches to amateur football teams was inconsistent
and incompatible with the Council's assertion that the playing fields
were "of public usage as of right". That is, until the Council
transferred the land for educational use in 2004. The playing fields have
been regularly used by amateur football teams from the 1970s to 2007.
The full report was published on 8 February and can be downloaded here:
Dixie
Dean Public Enquiry Report (PDF).
During the enquiry it was noted (but not published in the Report) that
the allocated annual budget for picking up litter once a week from this
4 hectare site was £17,000.
All of the inspector's recommendations were fully accepted by the Council's
Environment Regulatory Committee meeting on 16 February.
*The Commons Act 2006 changes the legal definition of a town or village
green, see
DEFRA web site.
18 February
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Speke Park
At the beginning of 2007 the remainder of Speke Park disappeared. Speke
Park was a large District Park and originally conceived as the centre-piece
for the 1950's Speke housing estate. In 2002 over half of this central
park became England's first regeneration Private Finance Initiative (PFI)
which included a leisure sports complex (built around an original swimming
pool) and "Parklands" the relocation of the library and community
centre along with a new school. A feature of the remaining park had been
a substantial hill left over from the PFI excavations.
In 2006 work started to remove the hill along with four rows of nearby
apartment blocks. These were leveled to make way for the development of
a supermarket and retail park with a link road to the A561. By 2007 the
area had became a construction site and all signs of Speke Park had disappeared
apart from some original cast-iron perimeter fencing.
The only other comparable accessible open space serving this densely
populated area of about 10,000 people had been a stretch of Playing Fields
situated between the housing estate and the newly built airport. The Playing
Fields were fenced off in 2005 and became part of Liverpool Airport's
facilities.
1 February
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Speke Parade
Across the road from the site of Speke Park is the Parade, originally
planned as a central shopping area for Speke housing estate with a range
of community facilities. A number of these services have already been
transferred to "Parklands". Once the Speke retail park is complete
it is likely that the Parade will be demolished.
1 February
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Add news and information to
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Please send information about events in parks which can
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details relating to public open spaces by email to info@ourground.net
All the photographs on this site are by John
Davies and is "work in progress". This selection
of images remains fluid and changes regularly. John Davies is also making
a series of portraits of people but these are not available on the internet.
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