Latest News

6th July 2005

On Wednesday 6th July at the Council's Three Parks Neighbourhood Committee meeting at St Michaels School, Spawforth Associates, consultants to the new leaseholders, the Langtree McLean Group, outlined their development proposals to the packed audience. The new plan is to build the same number of dwellings, i.e.1300, as the old horrendous Wiggins plans that were thankfully withdrawn before the Council threw them out; but to concentrate all of the building at the north end of the site in the area of the Festival Hall. This formula will leave much of the Festival site and all of the southern grasslands undeveloped. 

 

 Probably the best assessment of the plan is to say that it represents “Some Good News and Some Bad News.”

 

First the bad news. It has to be said that some of the GF Campaign supporters do not want anything at all built on the Garden Festival Site, so 1300 dwellings built on any part of the site will be for them be an act of sacrilege. Another negative aspect of the affair is that the existing road infrastructure would not be able to take the extra traffic generated by such a development and would quite simply seize up for much if the day and cause gridlock. The pinch point is the Jericho Lane / Aigburth Road junction. This problem was pointed out to the speakers, and they did not really have any remedy to hand, merely saying that they were aware of the problem and they would be dealing with it.  

 

The good news is that the Southern Grassland will be retained in largely its present form, and there will be a rejuvenation of a large part of the main Festival Gardens site, including the Japanese Garden. The salient point of the plan is that a very large part of the recreational and amenity value of the entire site will be retained, which simply has to be a big step in the right direction. And a positive result of the density of the housing development could be improved public transport, which would benefit the whole area;  the developers say they are consulting with Merseytravel on this, and improved access to St. Michaels Station is a large part of the reason for including Priory Wood in the plans.

 

We presently have no copies of the diagrams that were displayed at the meeting, but as soon as they become available they will either be posted on the GF website, or a link made to them if they are online elsewhere. We will also post details of further opportunities for consultation as we hear of them.  This matter is now moving forward, so everyone who wants to have some input on the subject, should be active.

 
 

 

26 May 2005

The City Council has passed a resolution covering various matters regarding the site. A very worrying  component of the councils decision, is that they seem to of accepted the future responsibility  of maintaining  the gardens, in return for a £2 million dowry. The interest in that sum of money will amount to about £80,000 per annum, and quite frankly it will not go very far. Make what you will of this information. There is more info about this decision on the council's website which you can see by following this Link and scrolling down the page to May 24th. 

 

                                                                                                                          

9 May 2005

The Langtree Group have released some information of their outline plans for the site. At first glance it seems to be pretty much a rehash of the ideas of their predecessors. At the moment we do not know much more than is in the following press article.          Link

 

15 March 2005

The campaign has been somewhat dormant for about 12 Months, and apologies for the lack of updates to this site. That inactivity is in some ways is a sign of success, because the previous leaseholders have given up trying to foist their horrendous building schemes upon the people of Liverpool, and the site is now in the hands of a new organisation, who are working out their plans. Lets hope we are not jumping from frying pan to fire.

The new property team are the Langtree Group who are based at Haydock, and according to the spin on their website, are the experts for dealing with derelict industrial sites and the like. Their web address is       www.langtreegroup.co.uk     if you want to check them out.

There have been a few mentions of the campaign on the web over the last 12 Months so better late than never, here they are:-

Article on the BBC website-    click here
 

24 November 2003

The saga of the Garden Festival site  made the news again with an article on page 16 of the Guardian  written by Heather Stewart. It compares the GFC site with the London dome and makes the point that politicians are much more adept at launching glitzy schemes such as the Garden Festival and the London dome, than they are at working out a complete strategy for the long term use of the sites when the "shows are over".    To read the article on the Guardian web site click   Here

6 October 2003

The City Council as the owners of the freehold of the festival site, have stated that they are going to serve a "Dilapidations Order" on the Wiggins Group because of their failure to maintain the site in accordance with the terms of their lease. More details are available on the City Council's Website   

 

4 October 2003

The Wiggins Group has donated £8000 to the Labour parties coffers. The donation was made some time since 2001 and is listed on the " Cleanpolitix" web site.   Your thoughts on this will probably depend upon your own political leanings, but either way I think you are entitled to know about it. You can visit the web site  HERE,  it lists the donations to all the parties, and  makes very interesting reading.                         .

17 August 2003

We have heard that the Wiggins Group have withdrawn their planning application for the garden festival site. We are still trying to get more information on this surprising news, and we will post an update when we find out more about what is going on. 

25 February 2003

The Garden Festival campaign has submitted our objection to the Wiggins planning application. The covering letter and the objection itself  can be read by clicking       Here.  

13 February 2003

The area committee meeting referred to below,  was a great success. Around 250 people packed into the school hall and it seems about two thirds of them came specifically for the Garden Festival item on the agenda.

 Mr. Loughran from the city planning department gave the audience a detailed talk about the plans and the procedure for handling them. The planners will be making various reports and assessments relating to the plans, and when they are ready they will be put before the elected councillors. He said it will  be April or May at the earliest before that stage is reached. 

There then followed an audience participation section of the meeting. Many points were raised, and it soon became obvious that there is strong opposition to this scheme in the local community. At one point one of the councillors asked if there was anyone on the room who was in favour of the plans. Deathly silence followed. I think that says it all.

 
              9 February 2003

The Wiggins outline planning application, is set down on the agenda for discussion at the "Local Area Committee" council meeting on 12 Feb. The meeting will be held at St Michaels school at 6pm . The meeting is open to the public, and it is a wonderful opportunity to meet your local councillors  and council administrators and officials etc. and let them know your views.  This is democracy in action, and if you want to have any input on this matter, come on down to the meeting. It is no good whingeing later.

 

31 January 2003

The new version of the Wiggins plans is now before the city council. Site notices have been posted  around the area, informing people of the proposals, where they may see the plans, and the procedure to follow if they wish to object, plus most importantly, the time limits for objections.

In our view the new documents, which are extremely voluminous, are a masterpiece of spin. It taxes your brain to  cope with all the content, (which might be the intention), but when you do discover what is really there, the proposals are only slightly less horrible than the earlier versions. They contradict the councils agreed development strategy for this part of the riverfront (as set out in the UNITARY DEVELOPMENT PLAN) , which state that this land should remain a green wedge, with priority for recreational use. 

There are very serious implications for the quality of life for our area if these  plans for 1300 dwellings are allowed to go ahead. We will lose a prime recreational resource, and the road system will quite probably go into gridlock with the extra traffic. 

7  November

We understand the wiggins group intend to submit a new set of planning proposals to the city council about the beginning of December

1 November 2002

First signs of success. The good news is that the plan to build a road alongside the prom has been dropped. Brief details are in the Wiggins Plans page, there is still a lot of work to do, but at least this is a step in the right direction.   

27 October 2002

An article in the Guardian about  complaints of health problems among schoolchildren who attend schools built upon reclaimed tip land. Of course the powers that be, can not find any evidence of any genuine medical problem.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,5500,816148,00.html