Toxteth District

[Waterways]

I do think Manchester was helped along a little with the aid of a bomb though. Even their own commentators admit that.

They may have. However they have done a brilliant job of the rest. They managed their regeneration,and image, brilliantly.

For the past 10 years there has been hot air about two new stadia in the city - so far, nothing!!!! Not one brick laid. In the meantime Manchester built a brand new stadium and has fully updated another to world class, while one club in Liverpool still has wooden stands.

I recall about three years ago Paxman interviewing an expert on regeneration on Newsnight. Paxman mentioned the regeneration in Liverpool. The expert responded that Liverpool has done little while Manchester surged ahead. He mentioned the new city centre development in Manchester and other projects, saying Liverpool would still be arguing over these and never gets anything done - the Brunswick Quay Tower comes mind - the developers said it would have been built by now. He was not complimentary towards the city at all. Those in power think this way too. When one £billion developments are thrown on their laps, they turn them down - Brunswick Quay Tower again.

The image has to be changed ASAP. A few forgettable low rise apartment buildings is not going to do that. The European City of Culture will be short lived and outside Liverpool few know of it.

The city needs an overall firm plan, moving the city to the dock waterways and river. It needs to know where it wants to go and what to do. The greatest legacy, which ever other city in the world would drool over, the redundant docks waterways, has to be used to great effect.

Read all the city planning documents and all you read is weasel words that appear to say positive things, then on closer inspection say nothing. Lots of hot air about vision, etc. Nothing firm.

[DaisyChains]

They may have. However they have done a brilliant job of the rest. They managed their regeneration,and image, brilliantly.

For the past 10 years there has been hot air about two new stadia in the city - so far, nothing!!!! Not one brick laid. In the meantime Manchester built a brand new stadium and has fully updated another to world class, while one club in Liverpool still has wooden stands.

I recall about three years ago Paxman interviewing an expert on regeneration on Newsnight. Paxman mentioned the regeneration in Liverpool. The expert responded that Liverpool has done little while Manchester surged ahead. He mentioned the new city centre development in Manchester and other projects, saying Liverpool would still be arguing over these and never gets anything done - the Brunswick Quay Tower comes mind - the developers said it would have been built by now. He was not complimentary towards the city at all. Those in power think this way too. When one £billion developments are thrown on their laps, they turn them down - Brunswick Quay Tower again.

The image has to be changed ASAP. A few forgettable low rise apartment buildings is not going to do that. The European City of Culture will be short lived and outside Liverpool few know of it.

The city needs an overall firm plan, moving the city to the dock waterways and river. It needs to know where it wants to go and what to do. The greatest legacy, which ever other city in the world would drool over, the redundant docks waterways, has to be used to great effect.

Read all the city planning documents and all you read is weasel words that appear to say positive things, then on closer inspection say nothing. Lots of hot air about vision, etc. Nothing firm.

Brilliant post

[AngelCake]

I do think Manchester was helped along a little with the aid of a bomb though. Even their own commentators admit that.

I don't know what Manchester looked like in the 80's but it looks much better than Liverpool and has famous shops that we haven't managed to attract yet(Debenhams ,Harvey Nichols etc) It's too late to make Liverpool (esp the surrounding areas of the city centre) look its best for 2008. We wanted something to eat on Saturday night and Lodge Lane was suggsted.It is so neglected it is beyond a joke. We ended up in Lark Lane -clean and friendly.

[marky]

TSB, Park Road (former Liverpool Savings Bank, South Branch).
Over the past few weeks I've seen workmen in here a few times, usually ripping out wood. I hope it's not getting demolished. A while back I noticed some of the old furniture in a skip outside.
There's a new plastic sheet on the roof, which is an 'improvement'. Today, smoke was coming out of the chimney...something I've never seen before from this building, plus hammering coming from inside.
There's a small Liver-bird emblem above the door, for anyone who hasn't spotted it yet.

[SteH]

Protesters are fighting a plan to knock down St Peters Church in High Park St and build flats instead.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liver...0252-20227149/

[PhilipG]

Protesters are fighting a plan to knock down St Peters Church in High Park St and build flats instead.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liver...0252-20227149/

I wonder if they're trying to get it Listed, because ultimately it's only Listing that is guaranteed to save a building from being demolished.

[Ged]

Does listing a building actually guarantee it from demolition though Philip, I thought it didn't.?

well look what happened to the sandstone houses on Breck rd.

[SteH]

Does listing a building actually guarantee it from demolition though Philip, I thought it didn't.?

well look what happened to the sandstone houses on Breck rd.

No you just need to jump through a few more hoops to demolish it. If it becomes unsafe fr example, then its perfectly acceptable to demolish it.

http://www.heritage.co.uk/apavilions/glstb.html

[Libertarian]

Does anyone know what happened to all the statues of historical people down Princes Avenue that were removed after the riots in 81?

I think they should be placed back.

[PhilipG]

Does listing a building actually guarantee it from demolition though Philip, I thought it didn't.?

well look what happened to the sandstone houses on Breck rd.

Yes.
A Listed Building can be "de-Listed" and then demolished, and there are some notable cases (2 cinemas in Southport, for example) but, whether we like it or not, Listing is still (usually) the only guarantee that a building won't get demolished, and we've got to work with the d*mned system.

Were those buildings in Breck Road Listed, though?
I keep saying this, but "Just because you think a building is Listed. Check. Because it probably isn't".

The Princes Avenue statues were put into "safe keeping".

[PhilipG]

I've just checked.
Those houses weren't Listed.
Two churches are Listed in Breck Road, but nothing else.

* April 14, 1975 II Breck Road Church of Holy Trinity
* April 14, 1975 II Breck Road L5 Richmond Baptist Church

[Ged]

Philip, I don't know if Lindy done some jiggery pokery with my posting regarding 'those breck road houses that I have no knowledge of' but I didn't post that line. Honest!!!!!

[Ged]

Liverpool Heritage newsletter:

AT THE TOP END OF TOWN

Ø The area where Abercromby Square and Falkner Square are situated were once there was an area of marshy ground called the Moss Lake, which drained into the inland end of the Pool of Liverpool behind World Museum Liverpool. The most important present occupants of this site are the University of Liverpool and the Metropolitan (Roman Catholic) Cathedral.

Ø The University of Liverpool has a programme of celebrations for 2008, which are shown on its website. The centrepiece will be the opening in July 2008 of the Victoria Gallery and Museum which will see the opening to the public of the iconic Victoria Building. The building, in Brownlow Hill, was designed by Alfred Waterhouse. Decorations were by Brindley & Farmer, a London firm of decorative craftsmen. This was the original red brick university and demonstrated Waterhouse's “high gothic” that saw him dubbed 'Slaughterhouse Waterhouse'. The landmark clocktower (with chimes) was paid for by public subscription to mark the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, though the building was completed only in 1892. William Farmer (1823–79) and William Brindley (1832-1919), produced much of the carving for Sir George Gilbert Scott, Giles Gilbert Scott's grandfather, including his Albert Memorial, London (1875).

Ø At the Metropolitan Cathedral a lift and passage are being put in to enable people to get from the main (1960s) building to the Lutyens Lady Chapel without going out of doors. The Lady Chapel was the only part of the grand design of Lutyens which would have seen a vast cathedral built, a project abandoned for reasons of cost and replaced by the more modest but still monumental concrete building that we now enjoy.

Ø Also in the area of the Moss Lake and today near the south east corner of Abercromby Square and its junction with Chatham Street is a hexagonal pillar box of the 1866 design by John Penfold, cast by Cochrane, Grove & Company of Dudley. A nationally uniform pillar box was first introduced in 1859, later a more attractive design was sought and the Penfold was introduced in 1866. It is hexagonal with acanthus decoration and is surmounted by an acorn. It came in three sizes and would at first have been painted green. From 1874 onwards all post boxes, old & new, were painted red. More recently, from 1989 onwards, replicas of this design have sometimes been placed in appropriate or historically sensitive sites but this is an original.

Ø At the other end of Hope Street, a small drama has been played out as regards the organ of the Anglican Cathedral. Some months ago the organ in London’s Albert Hall was re-opened after a period of refurbishment - and enlargement, making it larger than the organ in Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral, up to then the largest in Britain. This Newsletter forecast that the Liverpool Cathedral authorities were unlikely to be comfortable with this development. On 4 December this year the New Dean (Justin Welby) at his service of installation said that additional pipes had been added to the Liverpool organ and that it was now once again the biggest in the land. What a pity that the biggest of Liverpool Cathedral’s bells is second to the biggest bell in London’s St Paul’s Cathedral. Could anything be done about this? Probably not!

[lindylou]

Philip, I don't know if Lindy done some jiggery pokery with my posting regarding 'those breck road houses that I have no knowledge of' but I didn't post that line. Honest!!!!!

sorry Ged - that was me the quote didn't work and I hadn't noticed

[lindylou]

Hi Philip,

Going a bit off topic here as I posted this in the Anfield thread too ... but to quote that same post :
I was told that there was originally a bigger row of these sandstone houses - (probably where the Co-Op funeral place is now).

Opposite is Holy Trinity church, Breck rd. the church is built in the same red brick.
I am told that anything pre 1840 is automatically listed Grade 2, so I don't know why these houses have been ignored.
The one remaining block is still in it's original state, but the other one could have been renovated by having all that horrible white plaster removed and for the sandstone to be restored.



I know someone who went in to look at the houses and said that they were not, in his opinion, in such a poor state that they should be demolished. They could easily have been done up.

- anyway, too late - they have gone

I had mentioned it in this thread to show that they usually get their own way in the end and demolish.

sorry - let's get back to the subject of St Peters