Keep out of Welsh streets, Government urged

MAYOR of Liverpool Joe Anderson is demanding that Eric Pickles stay out of the decision on the future of the Welsh streets - saying that it should be left to the people to decide.

The call came after a heated debate yesterday at the Town Hall which saw plans rubber stamped to demolish hundreds of terraced homes in the Dingle.  

Within hours, the Department for Communities and Local Government ordered a halt to proceedings, giving Mr Pickles time to decide if he needs to intervene in the affair by calling a public inquiry.

In phase one, approved by the planning committee, 280 homes will go - to be replaced by 152 new - with some houses, including Ringo Starr's childhood home in the emotive Madryn Street and others in Kelvin Grove spared.  When the scheme spreads to the next phase the demolition tally could reach around 450 homes.

But a bit like the song, the long and winding saga is still set go on, and on. 

The proposals to redevelop the Welsh streets, backed by the city council and Plus Dane Housing group, were always going to be approved by councillors. Even the opponents knew that. 

But before the decision was made at the Town Hall yesterday, heritage campaigners had already declared they would ask Mr Pickles to call in the scheme. Failing that, they said they would consider court action to halt the project. 

It means the affair could drag on for months before the bulldozers arrive to sweep away houses more than a century old.  

Passions ran high during the council debate, exposing the rift between local people in favour of most of the houses being demolished to pave the way for new homes, and opponents who are adamant that far more dwellings than the proposed few dozen should be spared, and refurbished. 

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Supports of the Dane Plus Plan told how their lives have been blighted for 13 years, forcing them to live in a rat invested environment in damp and squalid homes. 

But campaigners said there was no need for wholesale demolition. They submitted a compromise which would mean far more homes being saved. 

Jonathan Brown said: “We are not opposing people having new homes if that is what they want, but there is scope here to save far more houses. As things stand fewer than 10 percent of the houses in the Welsh Street area will be refurbished and the rest cleared. It has already cost at least £20m just to buy and board up these houses. This has been a policy of managed decline.”

The Welsh Streets Homes Group said: “Residents have famously disagreed about whether demolition or refurbishment was the best option, but it is now widely accepted that a compromise must be found to alleviate the problems they all struggle with: living in spoiled, tinned-up streets, some in damp and cracked homes, with constant disruption from arson, fly-tipping and vermin.”

The group collaborated with local architects Constructive Thinking to create a potential solution that would save many more of the doomed houses.”

Cllr Ann O'Byrne, the council’s cabinet member for housing, said: “The future of the Welsh streets has been looked at more than any other scheme and every time the only viable solution is demolition and rebuild. It is not demolition for the sake of pulling houses down, there are so many problems with these houses. The rebuild has widespread support and we welcome it.”

Veteran campaigner Nina Edge lives in one of the houses destined to be saved.

She said: “We have not objected to this application because we have to all live together in this community. I believe more of the houses could be saved, but people want new homes and they are entitled to that.”

Clementine Cecil, of Save Britain’s Heritage, travelled to Liverpool to address the committee.

“It has been demonstrated around the country that if there is a will, old houses are capable of being restored and re-used,” she said. “It could happen her in the Welsh streets.”

Ms Cecil dismissed criticism that most of the objectors were “national or international” opponents to the scheme.

“We have put forward a compromise and if that is taken on board we can all move forwards. But if necessary we will consider legal action to halt this level of demolition. If every one of the houses in Welsh streets were restored there would be more than enough people eager to move in.”

The Battle of Welsh Street is far from over.