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A pocket park is what it is
Wasteland on Strand scrubbed up for business festival
A CITY centre eyesore is being spruced up into a temporary park as the city prepares to greet thousands of visiotors for the International Festival for Business.
Described as a "pocket park" it has been created on the site of the former Coopers pub and gym on the corner of James Street and the Strand.
Since the building was demolished about three years ago the land has remained unused. Land owners, Langtree, have given permission for a temporary park to be developed there.
“The site is one of the most important routes which will be used by people attending the IFB and now they will see an attractive green space instead of a disused piece of land, “said Councillor Steve Munby, cabinet member for neighbourhoods.
Cllr Steve Munby: 'Attractive
green space'“But it will also benefit local people – we have had a lot of positive comments from passers-by and local businesses and one hotel has already seen its potential for wedding photographs.
“This is the latest site where we are bringing disused or derelict land back into use. Across the city we have created more than 100 community gardens, pocket parks and green spaces and they have been warmly welcomed by local people.”
The council says granite recycled from highways, has been used to create seating areas. It also features a ship’s anchor which was formally a public artwork in North Liverpool. There are also planted areas in the new park.
INES (Plus Dane) social enterprise carried out the work on the park and they will maintain it.
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Pshaw! "Land owners, Langtree, have given permission for a temporary park to be developed there." Well I must say that is big of them. They do nothing with a prime site that could accommodate valuable amenities for the city whilst sitting on the land to reap full advantage of rising land prices. To cap the lot, they graciously ‘give their permission’ for someone else – at their own expense – to tidy it up and make it less of an eyesore in such an important location! You couldn’t make this up – I’m only surprised that we aren’t being charged money to look at the photograph!
Such important sites should be compulsorily purchased for the public good rather than allowed to be a blight on our townscape.
It's not soviet Russia you know
There should definitely be a requirement not to blight an area, but some projects just take a long time to get done. The council target up bit of Lime Street but what about the old Kwik Fit on Leece Street or the hole that used to be the employment exchange or for that matter the Carlton in Tue Brook, www.urbandegeneration.com/…/…
When Liverpool is a booming tourist destination it seems ridiculous that prime land in such a prominent position is left undeveloped. There are so many things one can no longer obtain readily in Liverpool; from proper woollen yarn to a top hat, from buttons to air guns, from decent stationery to a bow tie or fishing tackle. There is obviously a need to replace the specialist shops the city centre has lost over the last forty years. Or even a branch of Selfridge’s – as long as they undertake not to slide downmarket like their branch in the Trafford Centre has done.
Hear hear!
We have hundreds of shops selling overpriced PE kits and pumps, and Liverpool One has dozens of shops selling gaudy clownwear suitable for a gormless American teenager but I, a native Liverpudlian, cannot buy a decent hat anywhere in Liverpool. The city needs to be far less provincial.
You're not looking hard enough then. Maybe it's time to get on this web shopping thing, they reckon it's going to be the next big thing in Trilby procurement
How can you buy clothing without trying it on to see if it fits?
Surely your Tailor has your measurements, so why would you need to try each garment?
I have no tailor. These are hard times. In any case tailors don't make hats.
Try a one size fits all baseball cap maybe? You do look daft in a bowler nowadays
Why anyone non-American wear a baseball cap? Apart from people who want to look like simpletons that is.
Your first sentence gave you away, are you Navajo or Cherokee? William Hague looked natty in one you no think kimo sabi?
A bowler hat is elegant and extremely useful at bus stops as any fule kno: www.youtube.com/watch…
The Bowler or Coke hat has become much more respectable these days now that bailiffs have stopped wearing them.
Try doing that trick in the bus shelter with a baseball cap! (Mind you, the way a lot of baseball cap wearers smell, I think they have tried it.)