Waste plant hearing update two (June 2012)

The hearing into the choice of waste sites across Merseyside (including the Stalbridge one) is now finished.  I spoke on the last day of actual hearings and the Inspector then had a couple of days to visit some of the sites.

I was the only politician, from any party, to turn up and say anything about the Garston proposal.

We now have a bit of a wait.  The Inspectors report should be out around October.  I will blog again on this when I have any updates or when there is more news available.


This, not particularly flattering, pictures is me outside St Helens Town Hall just before the days session started.  I am publishing this as bizarrely a senior Labour Councillor earlier denied the very existence of the hearing!

Funds for your group

OK it's a long way away but the next deadline for applications for the Cressington Community First fund is 21st September.

We are setting up a new website but until that happens you can find the details, including the priorities for the fund and info about ward boundaries at

http://www.cressingtoncommunityfirst.blogspot.com/

There are also Community First funds covering other parts of the City (not all) including Speke Garston and St Michaels so if your group isn't covered by Cressington you may well be covered by one of the others.

Waste plant hearing

I am just back from speaking at the final public hearing into the waste plant site at Garston Dock (Stalbridge).  This is not into any planning application but instead into the decision to designate Stalbridge as the official sub regional waste site for Liverpool.  The hearing was into the whole Merseyside (and Halton) plan which included the Liverpool site and several others. (If you want more history to this there are quite a few posts on this blog earlier with the background!)

The reason for being against the designation is that it effectively directs would be waste plant operators to Garston.

All the councils, including Liverpool, had done a joint statement about the plan and the site choices. 

Actually I thought the argument around the Garston site was pretty weak in the document and ignored lots of factors.  (It also claimed full elected member support which is particularly annoying to those of us who seem to have spent the last year or so objecting at meetings to this!)

I argued that now that Jack Allen had walked away the fact of their planning permission was less relevant.  I argued that to persist with designating Stalbridge would have several negative effects on Garston in general and the Cressington Heath and Grange estates in particular, that public opinion was still very much against this and that it was hard to see the point given the fact that Jack Allen walked away and no one else has filled that particular gap. (This last argument is about deliverability - the idea is to come up with sites that will happen and the evidence in this case is the other way)

Associated British Ports has come to an agreement with the Council which effectively says that they are OK if the land is designated as long as that doesn't actually stop them doing something else with the site.  At first I thought this was very bad news but I now realise this actually undercuts the argment for designation so I made that argument too.

I am providing a copy of the petition I collected (thanks to those who signed) as part of my evidence.

We now have quite a long wait as the Inspector will need to do a report.  I will post again with the timescales etc.

Yep.. the weeds are back.

The City Council's environment cabinet member has admitted the weedspraying programme so far has been less than good.  Well in some parts of the City we are yet again seeing waist high or higher weeds that have either been missed or ignored.

Richard and I are keen to flag up areas where the spraying either hasn't worked or hasn't happened.  Do let us know if your street needs some attention. You can e mail me at paulakeaveney@yahoo.co.uk or Richard at richard.oglethorpe@liverpool.gov.uk.

The picture shows weeds in the Long Lane area of Garston.

Friends of Garston Park - pictures

Friends of Garston Park now has a Flickr Photostream which includes pictures from the Fun Day this year and from previous events.  We are still adding to it but do have a look.  You will find it at this link

Garston Old Road - update on what's going on - 22 June

I regularly get queries about what's going to happen to the site near the end of Garston Old Road (the old municipal waste transfer station).  There was a planning application in some time ago for some sheltered/extra care housing but its out of time now.

Anyway, this morning I had a chat with the owner of the site, who wants to develop it, and his architect and Cllr Richard Oglethorpe. Richard and I had been pressing for this meet up for a while as the lack of news for local people was causing anxiety. The idea is to put in another planning application for sheltered/extra care housing but one which can be built in stages.  I am not sure how quickly this will happen but I get a strong feeling that this application will be in sooner rather than later. 

Nobody likes seeing this site unused and becoming a potential or actual problem for the area and Richard and I certainly want to see something there that benefits our area.  As soon as we have details of an application going in, we'll let people know about it and will publish the link so that everyone can see what's being suggested. 

We also discussed ways of acknowledging or celebrating the particular history of the remaining building and the site (not the waste history the other stuff).

There've been quite a few complaints about the state of the site or use of the site while it's been empty and it has been cleared up over the last week or so which hopefully will make it slighly easier on the eye for people living in Garston Old Road and Ivy Avenue.

Anyway, as I said, once we have more news we will post again.

Garston Fun Day

I've just got back from the Garston Fun Day which again this year took place on Garston Park.

I was helping on the Friends of Garston Park stall and not only did we manage to sell out on the tombola, we sold loads of plants too, as well as managing to talk to people about the work we do to protect and improve the park.

I took some photographs and will post any decent ones both on here and on the separate Friends of Garston Park blog.

Despite the rather threatening weather, it was great to see all the organisations' stalls doing so well and to see the skateboard campaign there with their equipment (I didn't have a go myself being prone to tripping over!)

Well done to the local churches for once again organising the event and big thanks also to Lord Mayor Sharon Sullivan for visiting and talking to all the stallholders.