Planning ref 11PM/0603.
Dear Decision-Makers,
One of my most vivid and earliest childhood memories was the car journey back 'home' to Liverpool. As I pressed my nose to the window, street after street of red brick houses flashed past in the rain.
The very next year the same journey took us through a vast eerie landscape of broken bricks, criss-crossed with the faint grey of former streets.
To me it was an astonishing picture of destruction - literally a wasteland. Who had done this to a busy community? And where had all the people gone?
But who were we to complain about other people - slum dwellers - getting decent housing? My extended family lived in pleasant leafy streets around Muirhead Avenue, where three bedrooms, a bathroom and a garden back and front was the standard pattern. My own parents had taken the route south to a detached home in the garden county of Kent.
There was still a sense of loss. The adults made the same wry comment as people in towns and cities all over England: 'The planners have done more damage than the Luftwaffe ever did'.
The 1960s was the age of the white heat of technology, when we were promised jet-packs and cities in the sky. It turned out there were no jet-packs and the cities in the sky were cold and lonely. But once the low rise homes were gone, they were gone. There was no going back. Should the same happen to the Welsh streets?
I don't know how many of the Scottie Road houses could have been repaired. But I am certain that with modern technology the Welsh streets could become comfortable, sustainable, desirable low-rise homes for local people of all ages. One thing my parents' generation learned in the war was not to waste anything. And what could be more wasteful than flattening hundreds of houses that could be repaired and renewed?
No-one would now dream of suggesting a 60s style estate of tower blocks, so why persist with the other half of that toxic equation - the wholesale destruction of viable low-rise housing stock in the face of a nationwide housing shortage?
I was astounded to discover that there is no design proposal to develop the site even this was the whole point of demolishing the homes in the first place. So the best outcome that can be hoped for is a sterile grassed expanse and the worst a kind of no-man's land similar to that which persisted for years in the Scottie Road area, with serious implications for the safety and security of those living nearby.
The structural condition of the five sets of houses to be left standing is unknown so the proposed treatment of the gable ends may not prevent their collapse when the surrounding terrace is destroyed. Exposed interior walls may need emergency underpinning - at great cost. To proceed under these circumstances seems reckless.
Demolition would also unfairly prejudice the future of the neighbouring Kelvin Grove Houses.
With serious efforts underway to find viable alternatives to demolition there seems no reason not to wait for financial and design proposals from those who can offer a sustainable future for these houses. To proceed at this point would have no value other than for those whose bureaucratic and political status is supported by not reversing a contentious decision.
I have two further reasons for supporting the retention of the Welsh streets. Firstly, my researches have shown me that my forebears lived in similar houses, moving frequently around the Bootle, Toxteth and Kirkdale areas. There are thousands if not millions of people with a similar heritage. LCC would do well not to ignore the economic benefit of restoring and retaining streets that attract so many visitors. They may not appear in tourist board statistics but they are there. I too have made the journey from Scotland to see the home my great-grandmother lived in. Our built heritage is not just about cathedrals and stately homes.
Secondly, I have detailed knowledge what is involved in making old houses habitable. The cost for giving a repair contract to a major builder is one thing. If individuals were given the right support - perhaps through a housing co-operative - these homes could be revived at a far lower cost.
I believe the WSHG has made a cast-iron case for delaying the demolition whilst alternatives are explored. I sincerely hope that LCC will align itself with their forward-looking cause and rather than the bulldozers of the past.
Yours faithfully etc
Dear Decision-Makers,
One of my most vivid and earliest childhood memories was the car journey back 'home' to Liverpool. As I pressed my nose to the window, street after street of red brick houses flashed past in the rain.
The very next year the same journey took us through a vast eerie landscape of broken bricks, criss-crossed with the faint grey of former streets.
To me it was an astonishing picture of destruction - literally a wasteland. Who had done this to a busy community? And where had all the people gone?
But who were we to complain about other people - slum dwellers - getting decent housing? My extended family lived in pleasant leafy streets around Muirhead Avenue, where three bedrooms, a bathroom and a garden back and front was the standard pattern. My own parents had taken the route south to a detached home in the garden county of Kent.
There was still a sense of loss. The adults made the same wry comment as people in towns and cities all over England: 'The planners have done more damage than the Luftwaffe ever did'.
The 1960s was the age of the white heat of technology, when we were promised jet-packs and cities in the sky. It turned out there were no jet-packs and the cities in the sky were cold and lonely. But once the low rise homes were gone, they were gone. There was no going back. Should the same happen to the Welsh streets?
I don't know how many of the Scottie Road houses could have been repaired. But I am certain that with modern technology the Welsh streets could become comfortable, sustainable, desirable low-rise homes for local people of all ages. One thing my parents' generation learned in the war was not to waste anything. And what could be more wasteful than flattening hundreds of houses that could be repaired and renewed?
No-one would now dream of suggesting a 60s style estate of tower blocks, so why persist with the other half of that toxic equation - the wholesale destruction of viable low-rise housing stock in the face of a nationwide housing shortage?
I was astounded to discover that there is no design proposal to develop the site even this was the whole point of demolishing the homes in the first place. So the best outcome that can be hoped for is a sterile grassed expanse and the worst a kind of no-man's land similar to that which persisted for years in the Scottie Road area, with serious implications for the safety and security of those living nearby.
The structural condition of the five sets of houses to be left standing is unknown so the proposed treatment of the gable ends may not prevent their collapse when the surrounding terrace is destroyed. Exposed interior walls may need emergency underpinning - at great cost. To proceed under these circumstances seems reckless.
Demolition would also unfairly prejudice the future of the neighbouring Kelvin Grove Houses.
With serious efforts underway to find viable alternatives to demolition there seems no reason not to wait for financial and design proposals from those who can offer a sustainable future for these houses. To proceed at this point would have no value other than for those whose bureaucratic and political status is supported by not reversing a contentious decision.
I have two further reasons for supporting the retention of the Welsh streets. Firstly, my researches have shown me that my forebears lived in similar houses, moving frequently around the Bootle, Toxteth and Kirkdale areas. There are thousands if not millions of people with a similar heritage. LCC would do well not to ignore the economic benefit of restoring and retaining streets that attract so many visitors. They may not appear in tourist board statistics but they are there. I too have made the journey from Scotland to see the home my great-grandmother lived in. Our built heritage is not just about cathedrals and stately homes.
Secondly, I have detailed knowledge what is involved in making old houses habitable. The cost for giving a repair contract to a major builder is one thing. If individuals were given the right support - perhaps through a housing co-operative - these homes could be revived at a far lower cost.
I believe the WSHG has made a cast-iron case for delaying the demolition whilst alternatives are explored. I sincerely hope that LCC will align itself with their forward-looking cause and rather than the bulldozers of the past.
Yours faithfully etc
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