PR big guns come to town in bid to smooth Sefton Park Meadows fury

And your evidence for this?

Same as the evidence that anyone else's was box ticking.

John, you don't seem to appreciate that the Green Party, and many other Liverpool residents, do not want the Meadows built on. Full stop. Irrespective of what the plans do or do not offer. If this is your position, then you don't actually need to "consider" the plans, let alone start ticking any boxes.

I'm talk about the origins of the Green Party's position and many other peoples isn't based on any consideration of the facts, it a simple opposition to development. Their default position is No.

Rubbish, John. How do you know the position of many people "isn't based on the facts"? It is a huge, sweeping and glib generalisation to say people are simply opposed to development and that their default position is no. How dare you insult them in this way. Your default position is to come on here defending Mayor Joe Anderson, however misguided and plain wrong he might be. This is a man who has the entire Labour group to do that for him. They do because they have no choice, it is in the script. You do have a choice and you ought to ask yourself is it right to concrete over this beautiful part of south Liverpool and drag it down, when there are plenty of other places that could be dragged up, with a bit of imagination. Joe is easily inflated by his mates at Downtown Liverpool. Try not to always be his bitch.

The Rubbish is all yours Penny I've seen the "facts" trotted out by the supporters and they don't stand up to the slightest scrutiny. As a matter of fact Joe and I do not get on. The plans to bring somewhere else up never made sense. What you have written there is the classic nonsensical, unreasoned, opposition argument. You quite happy to insult anyone who doesn't agree with you. You sue emotive terms like concreted over but that is the entire depth of you argument, you opposition came first, the rest is just a rather thin post fact rationalisation.

Land is land and when they chop these avenues of trees down and build little boxes on what is left, this land will look identical to land in West Derby, land in Anfield Road, land in Wavertree and land wherever else Redrow, Wimpy, et al, have built on. There is plenty of land in Liverpool to put these houses on. Flatten Smithdown Road and the land will look exactly the same as the land we are talking about here. It is about imagination, reinvention. Here they are cutting off a nose to spite a very beautiful face. For what? A few quid.

"There is plenty of land in Liverpool to put these houses on." Perhaps you, and others, could pinpoint these vacant sites where Redrow etc. can build upon or is it the case that you don't really want any more new houses built in the city.

We could try the Garden Festival site for starters. Lovely view of the river. No takers?

You need to get you head out of your backside Penny. To Quote the ever accurate Answers.com There is an old joke in the Property or Real Estate business: Question: "In establishing the value of a house, what are the three most important factors?" Answer: "Location, location, location." In other words, the area the property is located in is so important, everything else you could say about it hardly matters.

A big plot is soon becoming available at Goodison, we hear. Why not build an estate of Southforks for wideboys there?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! The trees will go sooner rather than later, and the Councillors will read out a scripted, unconvincing apology - whilst peeling onions - saying that it was unfortunate that the trees were accidentally cutdown/burnt/poisoned/damaged but nothing can be done about them now so the developer might as well build even more of his profitable new slums. Developer laughs all the way to the bank with a suitcase full of money and plans to make even more at our expense. Seen it before. Time and time again.

Any box to contain your mind Robert could have dimensions smaller the the planck length.

What an unfortunate comparison for you of all people to use, Mr. Bradley.

Is that max planck? You always stumble with the attempts to sound as clever as you think you are

Who pay higher council tax.

So what? This higher council tax is a completely infuriating, and highly misleading non-sequitur. The "executive" homes that Redrow build (see the 120 "heritage" properties at "New Heys and Calderstones Grange) cost from around £400K and appear to be in council tax bands E or F - around 1900 and 2200. This is about twice the CT that the smallest, cheapest flat home pays £1056). But they occupies far more than twice the land. Although they generate much higher profit margins for the developer, which is what this is all about (cashing in on the 600k help to buy ceiling before it comes down, and never mind the consequences). So if the council is going to use maximising CT income as its main criterion for appraising development proposals, it should get developers to build lots and lots of small homes everywhere it can, and actively discourage large ones. I'm not for a moment suggesting they should do this, merely making the point that this argument in favour of this development doesn't hold water. Nor do most of the rest.

Hear hear Ms 54 - your logic is impeccable!

Thanks (and apologies for the dodgy corrections in the middle). The other infuriating aspect of this is the assumption that building these big homes is a good thing. Redrow's sale strategy for New Heys is to push the Help to Buy thing, and I imagine that they will use the same technique for the Sefton Park development. But a great many observers - from the IMF to the Labour Party, think that the HTB threshold is way too high, causing excessive debt and a housing bubble. I cannot get my head around the fact that a Labour mayor and almost entirely Labour council is not only not opposing this kind of development, or using its powers to ensure that the developers also commit to building some affordable homes, but that it actually initiated the whole thing.

Correction: I should have written the HTB ceiling (i.e. the 600k upper limit), not threshold.

You are correct. The Mayor's enthusiasm for this whole projuct is baffling. The profits will go to the developers, not the city which will loose another green space.

If you build lots and lots of small homes and greater and greater percentage of the occupies will be claiming council tax allowance so reducing the income.

John, since lenders do not grant mortgages to people on benefits, this can hardly hold true at the beginning. So are you suggesting that the less your home is worth, the more likely you are to lose your job? Any evidence for this?

Council Tax Support is available for more than just the unemployed, but also the low paid. Given the cost of renting in some cases buying can be cheaper. Plus people have kids... www.gov.uk/council-tax-reduction…

Ha ha! Come come, Bradders – can you honestly see people on today’s normal incomes being able to afford a family house in Sefton Park? Perhaps they might have been able to thirty years ago before the prices rocketed when the area became fashionable with affluent incomers.

WHat has that comment got to do with what I said.

You said that if normal houses were built they would all be bought by poor people claiming Council Tax Reductions! I do hope Redrow builds them nice garages where these people can keep their Ferraris - oh, and a rooftop landing pad for their flying pigs.

You yet to come up with any other answer.

It was the mandate of the mayor to sell the meadows off for "executive" homes. He, and only he, came up with the word

For the sort of people that the Echo likes to call "local businessmen".

Are you a PR man for Redrow by any chance?

Homing people??

There are a million empty homes in this country. If the politicians were brighter and did their jobs properly and the developers less greedy the housing problem could be sorted out quickly without concreting over England's green and pleasant land..

Bob, the whole point of all the protests is that this site is green space, whatever you want to call it, and as such shouldn't be available - not without a lot of consultation etc. which should have taken place well before they decision to invite developers to make proposals. There has been no mention of any additional payment (S.106) to offset the loss of a valuable community amenity, just nonsense about council tax. So it sounds like there won't be one. If this is the case, the developers are getting a bargain, and the city is being sold short. There are all sorts of brownfield sites all over the place, but it's a lot quicker, and less expensive, to build on sites like this. Even the trees they are magnanimously preserving will save them a fortune in landscaping costs.

Sefton Park Meadows is attractive green space with serpentine borders and mature trees. If it is necessary to build on green space, why not build on all that unsightly grassed-over wasteland where solidly-built, high-density housing used to be around Mill Street and Park Road in Toxteth proper? Fancy ‘apartment’ blocks would have river views and be handy for Liverpool One. Such buildings could only improve an area that thanks to Council planning now resembles a decaying sprawl suburb of Detroit.

LD are contracted to recover council tax arrears on behalf of the council. But you are entitled by law to obtain any of your personal information held by anyone. Ask LD to supply you with copies of all its records regarding your case.... and then go and speak to Citizen's Advice or a solicitor.