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Angry outbursts as Hope Street flats get go-ahead
Maghull Group student scheme a 'monstrous development'
IRATE residents from the Hope Street area hurtled insults and expletives at members of the city council's planning committee this afternoon after councillors give the thumbs up to plans for more than 600 student flats.
“Shambles” one angry man shouted accusing councillors of 's******* on local people'.
“Have you been to Bath or other Georgian cities?” yelled another, referring to the way other places treat their historic areas.
The tirade came as two big student flat schemes were approved by the committee after councillors toured the area to see the development sites for themselves.
Maghull Developments and Student Castle Ltd won approval for a multi-million pound scheme on the site of the controversially demolished Josephine Butler House, at the corner of Hope Street and Myrtle Street, rising up to 10 storeys high.
A row of London Plane trees to go the same way as Josephine Butler House
The scheme will see around 340 student bedrooms and studio flats built around a public realm area. It will mean the axing of a row of London Plane trees in Hope Street and ground floor of shops, cafes and restaurants.
In addition, Marcus Worthington Properties won approval for a scheme to redevelop Philharmonic Court between Catharine Street and Caledonia Street.
Georgian terraces in Catharine Street, currently student flats owned by Liverpool University, will once again become private residences. But at the back of these, the existing blocks of flats will be replaced by 354 student bedrooms in a development of three, four or five storey buildings.
The Maghull scheme was opposed by the Government's cultural agency, English Heritage, as well as the Rodney Street Association and local residents, including city councillor Janet Kent who lives in the area.
Rodney Street Association Chairman Dr Emlyn Williams had already written to the committee expressing concern and disbelief at the scheme, in what he called one of the city's most important heritage areas, its Georgian Quarter. Describing the plans as a monstrous development, he said it had an appearance more in keeping with post-war Bucharest or Minsk rather than Liverpool's Hope Street.
'More in keeping with post-war Bucharest or Minsk'
English Heritage said it could not support the development. The agency said it feared the scale of the scheme would create a dominant in the view between the two cathedrals.
Cllr Kent, speaking as a local resident, described the Maghull plans as a “bleak barrack”, with no redeeming features or a wow factor. She also criticised the lack of consultation among local residents about both schemes.
However, Planning Officer Peter Jones said he believed the project would help animate the Hope Street/Myrtle Street area. He said the planning team took a different view of the development to English Heritage. Just one councillor on the committee, Lib Dem Pat Maloney, voted against giving permission.
Residents objecting to the nearby Philharmonic Court scheme criticised the poor quality of the proposed buildings.
Local councillor Anna Rothery was critical of the Philharmonic Court plan also, saying it lacked imagination.
She said: “If this street was in any other city it would be coveted.” and she warned against the 'ghettoisation' of the area.
Cllr Rothery urged the committee to 'take a hard long look at the plan, and reconsider before setting what would be a standard.
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They look OK. What is all the fuss about? Do people want folk to go to university somewhere else? When I was a student I lived in a flat on Hope Street. Can't see a problem.
Don't be silly. What student would want to live anywhere without a parking space?
Move with the times, grandma!
Grant not every student is spoilt enough to own a car
True, only those who pronounce 'student' as "shtirdent", i.e., about 80% of them.
Students are spoilt and well off enough to have Starbucks taking over the cafes in both universities.
Its just the same old thing though all the time....everything has to have another bar..eating place...another fast food outlet/coffee shop attatched to it. What about affordable accomodation for people to actually put roots down and form a community there instead of a transient one that just uses the local and then moves on. Look whats happened in the Princes Ave area to see the decline with transient users all around the area
Transient users allow the Council more power to operate without considering the long-term which is a) more expensive and b) beyond their imagination and planning ability. A community makes demands of its council; transient users just want a short-term good time and ask questions that can be answered by PR departments and look no deeper. It's the new way to divide and rule!
That's true. I've lived in the Canning Street area for decades but I had always wanted to move further in and be nearer work.
During the mid-nineteen-eighties the smell of student grant cheques caused landlords with hitherto neglected and empty floors above shops in town to turn them into student accommodation. Normal, responsible people who worked for a living and loved the area had no chance.
Well you don't want decent people moving in, paying full Council Tax and accruing tenants' rights do you?
They'll get in the way when Maghull wants to buy the building at a fancy price and build a car park.
So Tesco won after all. Bet they grab a unit on the ground floor. Still, every little helps.
Many people are not against the development of the Hope Street site. But this is an iconic world street and we have a low quality development, cramming as much as possible onto the site. But to be honest, we have a council who has a very cavalier attitude towards the World Heritage site, so the little old Georgian quarter in Hope Street doesn't stand a chance. I do wish we had a body in our city, with real teeth, able, willing and wanting to preserve our cultural heritage. To be frank I have little faith in our planners.
Amen to that, Anonymous. This development will undoubtedly ruin the iconic Hope Street quarter if it goes ahead.
These councillors really are a load of plebicite bastards no taste of heritage or culture.They should all be sent back to the tenement mentality from which they emerged or failing that a swamp come sewer with a fine view over the drains no ch no running water and no dogs.
It is NOT an "iconic world street". Jesus, do any of you lot ever get a train anywhere?
Of course not ("iconic"!!!!!!!) but it did win an award recently:
www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/…/Hope-Street-wins-Great-Street-Award…
Do Maghull Developments still get invited to the city council Christmas parties?
Is it not the other way round?
If a developer such as Maghull or Peel wanted to demolish the Liverpool and Everton football stadia in order to build yet more high-rise student rookeries, unwanted office buildings and cramped, overpriced 'apartments' do you think the knuckle-dragging councillors might react differently from the way they do to threats to genuinely local assets like the Pier Head and Hope Street?
Ahr ay but da's different, footie is der real cultcher inni' like?
An' der Bea'les, like...
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuh?
They shouldn't have knocked down the Everyman. This is now a dead area. Maybe some life will be brought to it now.
They are actually rebuilding the everyman. Though personally I though the existing building was fine. The lack critisim by the Car Park presvation society was noticable but then it was an "arts" scheme.
The Everyman is being rebuilt and will be better than ever.
Change can be good, but speculative profiteers rarely are!
Reason nobidy objected to the Everyman being destroyed is that they didn't let on they were doing it. Still.
“However, Planning Officer Peter Jones said he believed the project would help animate the Hope Street/Myrtle Street area.”
‘Animate’? What is he talking about? Is there a now a shortage of large numbers of drunken students being sick in the street?
'Planning Officer Peter Jones' probably lives in Cheshire.
LOL!
It's always the same. there'll be a street doing very well on its own thankyou very much, popular, pleasant, nice mix of shops, pubs and other amenities then it gets noticed by a developer and/or the developer's henchmen in the local Council.
The City Council demolished the listed Employment Service building on Leece Street then turned both it and Hardman Street into a vomitorium streaming with urine and lager.
Now it feels the need to do the same to the much-lived Hope Street in league with Maghull, the company that destroyed Josephine Butler House
The council didn't demolish the employment exchange. It was done without permission.
So I take it that the criminals were assiduously pursued and imprisoned and made restore the damage they'd done?
It wasn't listed. Someone who was doing architecture at Liverpool Uni assures me they had a whip round and took out a contract on the person responsible.
Wasn't Maghull reponsible for the destruction of two important (if not actually listed) Georgian houses on Seel Street in the orgy of moneygrubbing leading upo to European Capital of Culture?
Absinthe makes my heart grow fonder. If you want a feel of how the area was before speculators, cheap jacks and imagination-free councillors ruined an ironic whirled street, catch the dole scenes from the movie Gumshoe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srZgdloqrzE
BBC TV's 'The Liver Birds' used to look for jobs in there when it was still called a 'Labour Exchange'.
The Council sneakily removed the roof then let the weather do its worst so they could knock it down on 'safety' grounds.
They needed that land because they thought Leece Street urgently needed a bit of empty waste land with an eyesore hoarding around it for over twenty years. I presume that Peel Holdings bought it for a song off their pals in the Council and they're waiting for the land value to go up.
It had a beautiful terra cotta façade.
Why do you say the council?
Because when I complained about it to a councillor for that ward in about 1995 she didn't deny it.
Not really the same as an admission. I 1984 it was up for sale. http://flic.kr/p/tse1a . There is mention of a plane to put a road through the site but I think that is the wrong location and that was further down at St Lukes Place next to the greek restaurant.
Didn't see much of the area, but Harry Cross was lookin' pretty natty on sax
Sweet Mother Of God: where do we find these Philistines to run the council? Can't they just demolish the Liver Building and put in more unneeded flats.
Unneeded in your opinion. How much money are you putting behind your opinion?
But they aren't needed. So many speculatively built city centre flats are unsold and empty because they are too expensive and cramped. Similarly most of the office accommodation is empty.
Carpetbagger property companies (many from abroad) that swooped in when property prices were low in Liverpool now own most of the city centre. The rents they demand are astronomical which is why office buildings are empty and crumbling and shop units are unlet.
(Except by betting shops and payday loan sharks)
Don't the people of Liverpool elect these councillors?
Yes. I wouldn't say the people here are representative of the population and it wants, desires and needs.
"If voting changed anything they would abolish it"
Sadly Frank, we are only allowed to vote for the thick bell-ends on the ballot papers.
Then why don't you stand.
Politics is a dirty business.
The Council has just turned Dale Street from a vibrant and prosperous entertainment and commercial street to a dark, crumbling, ghost-town street filled with rotting, empty buildings in a few short years.
Their work is done.
Now they need to destroy another vibrant, prosperous, popular, flourishing, picturesque, landmark street.
Hope Street is in its sights unfortunately.
How did the council do that? What entertainment was there on ale Street other then the Dandelion Strip place and the pubs that are there? What is missing is the bushiness which brought people to the work in the offices. If you went to Dale Street of a weekend in the 70s it was dead.
It's amazing that every time a new building development is proposed for Liverpool, all those who hate modern architecture kick off on this site. Perhaps they should all get together and form a company that designs and builds in pseudo-Georgian or Victorian style or better still, stand for election to the Council, then ban all post-1930s architecture in Liverpool.
When those Georgian building where built their contemporaries complained about the lack of wattle and daub.
It's amazing that every time someone dares say anything unflattering about an ugly, unsympathetic development the Council and its developer pals want to inflict inappropriately on some well-loved and sensitive area of the city centre, a claque of boorish bully-boys leap from the woodwork and start accusing everyone of hating modern architecture, being backward-looking and quite possibly being witch-burners.
It’s just that there are lots of places in Liverpool where development would be welcome but they are left in decline whilst popular landmarks, venerable views and delightfully ambient areas are destroyed for short-term profit by greedy developers who seem to get a macho pleasure from destroying something uniquely local and widely-admired by dropping a big, disfiguring, stinking, architectural turd right on it.
That they collect a big wad of public money for doing so is twisting the knife in the wound.
There's nothing wrong with modern architecture, but all architecture should improve its surroundings, not degrade them.
Gentlemen, I have a solution;
Build a load of jerry built terraces
Accelerate their decay somehow so they end up falling apart and in poor condition
Add some graffitti
Get some Jairmans to bomb them a bit and finish the job off
Bulldoze the area and leave it like a wasteland
Voila - back to the good ol' days before the nasty improvement people came to town, and everyone's happy!
The glory days are restored and we don't have to put up with all the damage done to places like Albert Dock (so much better when full of mud and derelict), the Cast Iron Shore and the Pier Head - so much more attractive in the early 70's
Sorted
I think it is Fockers first and then graffiti
We aren’t talking about a derelict, jerry-built terrace, we are talking about a long-established open space between Rowse’s Grade II listed Philharmonic Hall of 1933 (modern architecture) and the Grade II listed Philharmonic Dining Rooms said to be " of exceptional quality in national terms".
If I'm not mistaken, that's a rather busy intersection of two roads, I don't see anyone speaking of that??
A long established Car Park.
Won't be long until I'm lost all the time again.