Monday 24 June 2013

Get news about South Liverpool.

I publish an e mail bulletin roughly once a month to keep people up to date on local news and issues.  It focuses mainly on L19 and L18 although it does also cover bigger stories nearby.

If you want to start getting these bulletins, you can subscribe at this link.

Brodie Avenue - phone mast application

There's an application in for changes to the phone mast on Brodie Avenue (the one roughly opposite number 192).  Vodafone wants to make it a bit higher and add some cabinets. 

They seem to have managed to get the wrong postcode and contact the wrong councillors, so 0/10 for care so far from Vodafone.

Details and a chance to comment (by 10 July) is at this link

Grants on offer - but tight deadline!

I've blogged before about the Cressington Community First fund.

Well there is also a Speke/Garston Community First fund which covers part of L19 and most of L24.

If your organisation is in Garston, or you work to help people in Garston, you may well be covered by this fund.

The deadline for the next lot of applications is very close though.  It's actually this Friday (28th).

You can get information by e mailing  spekegarston.liverpool@hotmail.co.uk






Wednesday 19 June 2013

Garston Fun Day... come and meet!

This Saturday sees Garston Fun Day take place on Garston Park.

Running from 11 am to 2pm it's a great event with stuff for children and adults and plenty of stalls run by local organisations.

I'll be there with the Friends of Garston Library - we're a pretty new group so it's a chance for us to tell people what we are about and get them involved in competition.

But at the risk of missing someone off, I want to specifically name check Friends of Garston Park who always run a great stall  (which I'll won't be able to resist also helping on) and Crafty Corner, who tell me they'll be there too.

The Cressington Community First panel will also be carrying out a survey.  We want to find out community views about what priorities we should have for spending the rest of the Government grant we give out.  So if you live in Cressington ward, do please fill in one of our (very short) surveys.

The Fun Day happens because of the enthusiasm and drive of the organisers, particularly Pastor Nick from Long Lane Church. So big thanks to him and his team!

Hmm.. weeds seem to be neglected again.

We've had complaints from several L19 residents about the apparent lack of weed spraying down our way.

We're told the programme is running a couple of weeks behind which means the weeds in L19 and part of L18 were sprayed on or around 8th June.  So they should be dying back now... clearly not.

This picture is one of a set showing a group of streets which look as if they've been ignored.  These weeds aren't high (they are not that sort) but they are clearly very obvious and need to be dealt with if the pavement's not to look a state.

And if the council wants to see some higher weeds, there are some good hip high ones in the bit of L19 I live in.

L19 is one of the last bits of the City to get the spraying treatment as priorities were clearly elsewhere for the Council.  Let's hope though that despite being nearly last the work actually gets done.

Monday 17 June 2013

Longer delivery hours at ASDA St Mary's Road?

ASDA on St Mary's Road wants to be able to get deliveries earlier in the morning and later at night.

At the moment it's restricted to between 7 am and 10pm but the company wants to change that to 6 am to midnight.

To do that the store needs to get planning permission because the existing hours were agreed when planning permission went through for a store there back in 1992.

Details are on line at this link.  You can also comment on line there also.  Most of the info is in a section called Related Documents which you can find by scrolling down to the foot of the page.

Saturday 15 June 2013

Beechwood Gardens - plans for more housing

Some time ago (well ages ago really) I blogged about plans for some more housing at Beechwood Gardens.  The scheme involved the patch of grass that's behind part of Beechwood Gardens (it looks like a rectangle) and involved houses for shared ownership.  The housing association involved was Plus Dane.

Well, after quite a delay, the planning application is in.

There's a deadline of early July for comments.  You can see the details at this link.

It's worth bearing in mind that all the detail is in the section on the site called Related Documents so you may need to scroll down to the very bottom and then click on that. 

Monday 10 June 2013

Solvent plant expansion?

A planning application's come in for an expansion of the plant on King Street in Garston that's used by Veolia to process solvents.

You can see the details at this link.

Planning Garston

Urbed, the organisation asked to draft a plan for part of Garston, has nearly finished its work.

There's now an on line survey on the ideas for the area (which is roughly the St Mary's Road area, the Under the Bridge area and  a little bit more)

Even if you haven't been able to go to any of the meetings, you can give your views (and see the exhibition boards) at this link.

There's a deadline in late June.

The idea is that the plan goes to someone at the Council and then hopefully lots of it get put into action.

Thursday 6 June 2013

Sefton Park licensing decision

The Council wants to change the rules about events on Sefton Park.

It's suggesting that the number of people who can be at any event is raised to just under 40,000 and that alcohol can be sold between 10 am and 10 pm there seven days a week.

The meeting to make the decision is on 26th June.

Licensing committees are usually in a small room in one of the Council buildings.  This time it'll be in the Town Hall so that more members of the public can be there.

Quite a few objections have come in, as has a petition.

Information about the meeting, which is open to the public, is at this link.

Tuesday 4 June 2013

Garston Library Opening Hours to change

Garston Library and One Stop Shop is to change its weekday opening hours to
9 to 5 (as opposed to 10 to 6).

This is because there is demand for earlier opening at the One Stop Shop but there is little use of it in the 5 to 6 period.

The change comes into effect on 1 July.  Saturday times (10 till 4) stay the same.

This does mean that people with  9 to 5 type jobs won't be able to pop to the library after work.

Sunday 2 June 2013

15 June - Gilmour School summer fair

Fundraising event at Gilmour infants coming up later this month.

Some basic information is on the Facebook page here.

Neighbours day and looking round ESLA

Last Friday (31st May) two neighbours day events took place in the area - one in Speke and one in Garston.

I went along to the Garston one, which was held in the Enterpise South Liverpool Academy.

What a great new building for our area.

As well as walking round the stalls at the front of the school and inside, we had a chance to have a real look around the building
and all the new facilities.

The school has so much potential.

The picture here is actually the back of the building.  There are some fixed exercise points (I didn't try them!) and some trail paths and raised beds and a greenhouse.  But there are also loads of trees and all this open space.  The back looks a lot less dramatic than the purple/pink front and I saw at least two places where new trees had been planted so it should become even greener.

It's only quite recently that the school moved in so it probably still feels very new to everyone there but what a difference this should make.

Brightening up the art in the park

Today I joined the Friends of Garston Park to do a few repairs to the artwork around the outside of the sports pitches.

The artwork started going up more than a year ago with the final two boards, which include  poem by Mike Axworthy, being fixed on last month.

The weather's taken a bit of a toll on some of the work though so today we painted and varnished some of the boards.

I've written about the art project before but for those who don't know, the idea involved groups producing boards which showed their thoughts about Garston, Garston's history or health and wellbeing.  Merseyside Youth Association's Brendan Burton played a key role (I mention this because the acknowledgement board shows organisational logos but doesn't name check!)

Anyway, thank goodness for decent weather this morning as we needed to protect the boards and make sure they are in a good state for the Garston fun day later this month.

Now off to wash all this varnish off as I seem to have managed to transfer rather a lot of it onto my hands and clothes!

15th June - Love Allerton Road event

Later this month, shops and organisations in Liverpool 18 are getting together to put on a special day to celebrate what's available locally.

On 15th June, the usual Allerton Road farmers market (near the library) will be twice its usual size.
There'll be stalls along the road run by organisations like The Reader .

The idea is to highlight what's on offer on Allerton Road or nearby.

My colleague, Cllr Richard Kemp, is involved in the organisation and he's written a short article about it .here  There's still time for businesses and organisations to join in.