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Nor was there any absolute prohibition on filling in docks and in any event this has not happened, nor will it.
Listing was done for a purpose. Maybe that purpose is over and done.
We are none of us stupid, we can see for ourselves what water there is and what water there is not. We don't need pictures of unrepresentative fragments of docks.
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In any event, our heritage is not in bricks and mortar and whether there’s water in between or not. It is the bold and enterprising nature of our city. The buildings we keep serve to remind us of that and to help to keep it alive.
We must make decisions about what we keep and what we don’t. You may not want, and we do not need, wholesale conservation of absolutely everything. But we also do not need to close our minds to anything but one particular cause or course because we think it would be nice, however impractical or undeliverable that might be.
Peel haven’t. They have listened. You need only look at what they started with and what they propose now. But it is none the less do-able for all that. It’s not uneconomic, doomed-to-failure noddy boxes and barges.
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And what benefit would a ‘New Amsterdam’ bring? There is empty land aplenty in Walton, Kirkdale and Everton for development of that kind of modest scale.
The population of the Liverpool side of the Atlantic Gateway Strategic Investment Area, the former heart of Walton and Kirkdale and all that is scouse (800 hectares also known as ‘Northshore’ - of which Central Docks is only one-fifth) is... precisely, zero.
We’d do rather better to attend to that than shackle the growth of the city centre.
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Peel bought the land, along with the MDHC. It wasn’t free, even when the port was on its arse and no one else was interested. They’ve been holding it since. Expensive - money to buy companies, with or without land, does not come free either.
Assuming 60 Hectares of Central Docks’ one-fifth is actually land, it has to go some to recover those costs and to perform at least as economically well as the 130 Hectares it actually occupies. Small wonder the buildings are tall and there's pressure on the water.
Economic pressures matter. Money matters.
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I was reading today that 1 in 3 houses in Liverpool have no employment. Some people survive on £20 a week net of ‘fixed costs’.
There are people, some in positions of influence, some in non-elected and unrepresentative organisations like UNESCO, who have actively and expressly preferred a ‘do-nothing’ policy for the sake of ‘heritage’.
We should not accept anything for anything’s sake - ever, but economic pressures seem to matter rather more to the 1 in 3 than it does to the likes of ‘keep-it-all’ conservationists.
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I’m not above getting sentimental over past glories. We can all see value in desirable buildings to keep and we can envisage a water-based expansion in Liverpool but without fundamental reason to be, none of it will happen.
So ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ will not do. There must be sound economic drivers to make it work or else it will stay as it. Dark tanks and desolation, bound in aspic, stuck in the 1950s (or rather the 1970s). An excuse for failure.
Perhaps this allows you to prefer the exploitation of the working man for personal profit of the very few that the Duke’s Dock Warehouses represent (the clue is in the name) rather than the economic and social benefits of the Echo Arena, ugly as it might or might not be.
Only you can say. But there was no other use for them as economically beneficial anywhere on the horizon, or ever.
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It is a great shame that many of the more enterprising have left the city and will not be coming back. Or at least not while it continues to look back. The city's population is half what it was in 1938. Half. And still flat-lining. The birth rate goes on but people are still leaving.
But one thing to thank Peel for is, they’re still here. They’re still here, they’re still looking forward and they’re still investing. Peel have spent millions and not a brick laid. No windfall profits to be had there. Only hard work, money, risk and enterprise.
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No, I’m not involved with Peel. Much that it matters. Peel know their own mind (as do I). They’ve no need of my support (or would be bothered by my criticism).
---------- Post added at 01:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:32 PM ----------
Originally Posted by
Ged
Liverpool waters V WHS - F*** WHS off then as Dresden did.
There are no rules about a rapid transport provision. If the council want to do this then that's up to them.
Indeed, it is not Peel's responsibility to provide external infrastructure but having said that they envisage a new overhead with potential for connections to the airport. I understand there are four stations on the Wirral Waters Scheme and the city have a new station in mind on its own merits at Vauxhall on the Northern Line (Merseyrail).
Because of the geography of the city and the way the population is spread, there will be significant increased demand for cross-river traffic, which (if all was built to its greatest potential) could only be met by a new rail tunnel. A long time in the future and certainly not Peel's to fund.
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