Not up to council to ‘curry favour’

I WAS very surprised by the Daily Post comment that the city council has not “gone out of its way to curry favour with Tesco” by opposing a number of projects that company is involved in. (Daily Post – 15 March 2010).

It is not the duty of the city council to curry favour with any company. We judge projects by the benefits they can bring to the city. With regard to Destination Kirkby we believed the scale of the retail element would have an adverse impact on shopping schemes in the city. This was a view shared by all neighbouring authorities and supported by the Planning Inspector.

As Sir Terry Leahy points out Tesco has a number of successful schemes in the city, hardly suggesting the council opposes his company for the sake of it.

But in regard to their scheme for the Great Homer Street area our view, again supported by the Planning Inspectorate, is that the Tesco plan will not bring about the regeneration that this area badly needs. A stand alone foodstore is not what either the council or the community want for Great Homer Street, and the city council will continue to pursue the comprehensive regeneration scheme we all believe is necessary.

The city council has already decided that it will launch a Compulsory Purchase Order to deliver the comprehensive regeneration scheme, a process we intend to embark on once the appeal process has been determined. What is needed now is for Tesco to sit down with us and start talking seriously about the land issues involved in Project Jennifer.

Councillor Peter Millea, executive member for assets and development, Liverpool City Council

Labour economics

DAVID Higgerson March 9 and Rob Merrick March 10 refer to the issue of Lord Ashcroft, and embarrassment to the Tory Party.

The fact is this Government has built up a deficit of £200bn, the biggest peacetime debt. The Lord Ashcroft item is a nice diversion for the government, but people in glass houses should not throw stones. The Labour Lord Paul is non-domiciled. He last week said there were others beside himself.

Rob Merrick said that the “macho Tory vision of a strong pound is offensive”. I cannot think anyone would agree with him. He criticised David Cameron’s party for saying the pound would plummet and the Government would be unable to fund its record borrowing spree. I believe similar remarks were made by Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor who can speak with authority on such matters.

Mr Merrick refers to Black Wednesday on several occasions. This occurred after we joined the European Exchange mechanism and when the pound was attacked we had to withdraw from this, but when Labour gained power in 1997 economists pointed out that they inherited a good economy having had the benefit of 20 quarters of growth, an aspect never admitted by Gordon Brown.

In fact he said that Labour inherited a mess, a trifle rich in view of current events.

J P Connell, Crosby

Wasted votes

FOR many years now the Lib-Dems have claimed they will win parliamentary seats in Liverpool and other parts of Merseyside. However nearly always wasted votes on the Lib-Dems have only helped Labour. The whole North West region has just five elected Lib-Dem MPs. They are expected to lose control in Liverpool at the local elections in May.

The most recent national elections of Euro 2009 saw the Lib-Dems trail in fourth behind UKIP.

They have only one MEP in this region after the loss of a seat. I believe most thinking people will realise Lib-Dems have as much chance of forming a government, as the Liverbirds have of flying.

Should the outcome of an election produce a hung parliament, the Lib-Dems would most likely keep Labour in power as they have in the past.

Our citizens must decide, if they want another five years of Mr Brown’s mess or are they going to change for the better and elect a responsible government with Mr Cameron in charge?

Danny Dougherty MBE, Stoneycroft

Heroes’ thanks

MANY thanks indeed for generously supporting the cause that we at 33rd (Lancashire and Cheshire) Signal Regiment (volunteers) decided to treat as our swansong.

The £500 from the Lord Mayor’s Fund is the icing on the cake. We have asked that the whole £33,833 (the net proceeds from the Help for Heroes Concert we staged at the Phil in January) goes towards the building of a Recovery Unit attached to a camp in the UK where wounded service personnel can recover alongside their mates rather than in civilian hospitals.

R I S Meadows OBE DL, Hon Col 33 Sig Regt.

Dog tax U-turn

I AM delighted to see the Government backing down over the suggestion that all dog owners take out third party insurance for their pets.

This would never have stopped danger dogs, all it would have become is a tax on already responsible dog owners.

Mrs T Simm, Crosby