Boo Hiss, I hope who-ever is responsible feels ashamed of themselves.
Boo Hiss, I hope who-ever is responsible feels ashamed of themselves.
Become A Supporter 👇
Donate Via PayPal
Statement by Lucy Page, Chairwoman, Save The Festival Gardens Campaign:
"On behalf of the campaign to Save the Festival Gardens I welcome the Secretary of State's decision to call in the planned Langtree Mclean scheme.
·"We want a public inquiry because we believe that the proposals to redevelop this important site have never been given proper scrutiny and assessment. We hope a public planning inquiry will provide the comprehensive re-assessment the scheme needs – and will help rescue the Council from the consequences of its negligence.
"The truth is that the Council approved the Langtree McLean scheme on the basis of a badly flawed assessment by the Planning Officers – and because the Council itself had failed to scrutinise the proposals from their planning officers properly.
Full rant can be read here
I'm left with the suspicion that many of the people doing the campaigning want the festival site to become a 'public garden' or 'designated wildlife area' because it would increase the value of their properties.
It will be interesting to see what arguments are put forward at the inquiry.
Apparently it was one of Ruth Kelly's last decisions.
Just read the 'rant'.
I find it a bit disingenuous. My reading of the design is that most of the residential development would be on land not dissimular from that currently occupied by the current Riverside Gardens (a former petro-chemical storage facility). The actual rubbish tip was largely confined to the area of a line to the left of Southwood Road (if my memory serves me right).
Has anyone actually done toxicity readings for the soil in the proposed development area?
Maybe the inquiry should look at wider developments in this area since 1984. I would welcome the opportunity to see the whole of the area returned to its pristine pre storage depot state. Of course, that would involve removing all residential development between Buckland Street/Dingle Vale, Lane and Road and the Mersey. Just think of what an asset such an area would be to the southend of the city.
Well this is what was in the original documentsHas anyone actually done toxicity readings for the soil in the proposed development area?
and I thought it was the slugs that were killing my carrots.Considering the site is also a former landfill site, Policy EP3 – Landfill Gas
also applies which advises:-
• That planning permission will not be granted for development on
former landfill sites unless the applicant can clearly demonstrate
that there is no risk from the generation or migration of landfill gas,
or that satisfactory measures can be taken to counter any possible
hazard.
The site is clearly heavily contaminated and due to the major costs involved
in undertaking a full blown contamination investigation ‘at risk’, such a route,
whilst desirable, would be completely commercially unviable given the risks
associated with securing a planning permission. As such, an amount of
preliminary works have been undertaken, and are continuing to be
undertaken.
Methodology
A total of 25 boreholes are proposed in order to continue site investigations
at this site. Both landfill gas and groundwater are to be monitored at
fortnightly intervals in order to establish the existing regimes on site.
Monitoring locations are chosen based on areas of likely exposure to
potential residents of the site, and areas where gas levels have previously
indicated elevated concentrations of landfill gas. A wide range of chemical
parameters will continue to be tested on soils to ensure that they will not
create any long term risks to end users of this site.
The study into the generation of leachate and its potential migration within
the site and its impact on the environment is currently in progress.
The long term management of landfill gas utilising the current gas migratory
pipelines is currently being considered.
Notwithstanding efforts to minimise the amount of ‘cut’ into the site, a
substantial amount of material is proposed to be re-graded between the
developed core and the southern grassland areas that will require complete
characterisation of the material that is to be excavated.
I just want what was always promised.
Namely the Japanese Gardens made available to the public, and housing built on the rest of the site.
As for the whole site remaining a park/woodland, I think I'm right in saying that this site is bang in the middle of three public parks, namely Prince's, Sefton and Otterspool.
No other part of Liverpool has such a high percentage of public open spaces.
None of this Festival Gardens site is officially open to anybody, least of all the NIMBY's who want it left to continue to be the biggest blight in South Liverpool.
Well said Philip G.
If you actually look at the plans you can see that the residential bit only takes up about a quarter of the site with the rest of of it being restored and opened up to the public.
This is just another delay for yet another key project in Liverpool. I feel truly ashamed at the lack of co-operation and the blatant selfishness of some people in this city. Whatever happened to looking forward and doing what's best for the city? People only care if it affects them and if they have something to gain from it. It's sad to see.
Festival gardens revamp setback
The regeneration of Liverpool’s derelict International Garden Festival site was put on hold once again last night, after it emerged a public inquiry is to scrutinise the project.
More...
Inquiry into festival site scheme
The government has ordered plans to redevelop the former garden festival site in Liverpool to public inquiry.
More...
Garden festival plan hit by inquiry delay
Long-awaited plans to restore Liverpool’s derelict garden festival site are in doubt today.
More...
The land there thinking of building on sounds pretty contaminated. In order to supply all those appartements taps in water they would naturally have to run the water pipes leading to the buildings under contaminated ground. Now, my concern is this: pipes decay and get leaks in time, this happens to all pipes. Leaks are often long to notice. Wich means that after some years when those pipes buried in contaminated ground crack and leak some contaminants may well get into the water the people living in those appartements are drinking. Now I dunno about other reasons for an inquiry on the project, but I sure would like some questions asked on how they plan on insuring those peoples health that will be living in those buildings, not just now when the pipes are new but in 5, 10, 20, 30+ years from now when those pipes aren't pristine anymore and start making innocent people sick. Once a pipe system has been put in the ground city governments tend to overlook them for a long time until major problems arise. Just mentioning it cause we have had this problem with old overlooked pipes dating quite some time breaking and causing problems in my own town. Luckily for us they were not buried in contaminated ground. But what if they are? Contaminants tend to circulate in the ground even when it's filled in with new soil, even rain has been known to carry contaminants from one place in soil to another as it's absorbed and moves trough the ground. What are the real risks to the people living there? I'd love to see that project come true and for that land not to be left in the current state but I do understand y certain people are raising questions.
Last edited by LunaticLu; 07-13-2007 at 10:58 PM.
If the unbuilt on part of the Garden Festival site is contaminated, then so is the land on which the NIMBY's are living, because it was all the same site before 1984.
They don't complain that their houses are on contaminated land, just the rest of the site which they don't want to be built on.
Which leads me to conclude that none of the site is contaminated, except if you consider the methane gas a contaminant, and that is being safely disposed of on-site.
Now thats really interesting to know. Thanks for the info Phil. If your right about that land all being the same then the NIMBY'S should really watch out for whats in there drinking water. And yes I would also, like you, question there motivations as to know why they oppose the project if they are already living on the said contaminated land themselves. As for there being no comtamination well considering its an old garbage dump I'd be amazed if it was only methane emanations that were the problem, knowing what people throw in the garbage and all. The usual contaminants found in dumps here are a combination of heavy metals and other by products of decaying house furnishings like freyon, etc.
Speaking of, does anyone have an old map of how far that old garbage dump spanned exactly? I'd really be curious to know how much land exactly it used to cover.
__________________
thanx for the info y'all
Last edited by LunaticLu; 07-14-2007 at 03:53 PM.
See also the 'Inquiry into festival site scheme' thread here.
Lost Liverpool, Pleasure Island
So there should be,giving that prime site up for yuppie flats is just plain wrong.Give it back to the people the city centre has loads of brownfield sites that need developing.I want a waterpark there,I made an inquiry for the one in Southport this week and was told to expect a 2 hour wait,that's how popular it would be.Inquiry into festival site scheme
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks