Letters to the Editor - July 20th 2007

Jul 20 2007 Liverpool Daily Post

Everton need to look ahead

I THINK Evertonians need to ask themselves one question when they think about the proposed move to a new ground – “do you want to see the team progress in the future or do you want to languish in nostalgia?”

The fact of the matter is that Goodison Park is only really making money one day per fortnight (match day).

The stadium is not making any money for the club on the other 13 days.

Look at every other ground around the country. They all have a large number of private boxes, function rooms and private suites. These are used on match day to attract wealthy fans, shareholders and to provide corporate hospitality. These facilities will also be utilised away from match days for concerts, conferences and private functions.

Now look at Goodison Park. They have a handful of small suites in the Main Stand; a dozen or so private boxes and a Portakabin in the car park in the Park End.

The facilities on match day at Goodison Park for the average fan are restricted, too. Half time in the Gwladys Street End is overcrowded, it is impossible to get a drink or something to eat, and there are massive queues for the toilets. If Everton cannot gain the extra revenues from utilising their facilities every day of the week, then there will be less money to invest in the team.

I believe that every Evertonian wants the team to be competing at the highest level, winning trophies and playing in Europe. A new stadium with fantastic facilities would give Everton a good financial foundation to build on future success.

Robbie Greenslade, via email

Let residents vote

IT APPEARS that, in the current discussions between Tesco plc, Everton FC and Knowsley MBC, little, if any, thought has been given to what the residents of Kirkby want.

Knowsley has spent a great deal of money trying to convince everybody that it is bending over backwards to keep residents in the picture.

Whose picture: Everton/Tesco’s?

Having a football stadium and a super-large Tesco store stuck in the centre of a residential area will certainly have a direct effect on the lives of the residents, yet the council will not give residents the opportunity to say yes or no.

You suggest that the land being given to both organisations is worthless.

It is the largest piece of open land in the centre of Kirkby. As it appears that the rest of the town centre is to be concreted over to accommodate the estimated 9,000 cars that will appear on match days, very little greenery will remain.

I had always thought that the local authority was there to serve the residents, not the other way around. Give the Kirkby residents the chance to make a choice.

R Traynor, Kirkby

Garden eyesore

WITH reference to the letter by Eric Moffatt (Daily Post, July 12), I am a home owner who lives on the other side of Riverside Drive from the Garden Festival Site and a member of Riverside Residents Association, formerly Riverside Action Group.

As a member of the committee of this Association, we have been working to get something

done with this eyesore on the main route into Liverpool City Centre, from the south, for 15 years, and we thought we had almost “got there”, until the NIMBYs raised such a fuss, that the Government are

now calling in the scheme for review.

The site is a classic “brownfield” space, being reclaimed land. And the Government say that they intend to develop brownfield sites for housing. The trees that everyone gets upset about, were fast-growing species, put in for the festival, are now past their shelf life and need replacing with more permanent species. Mr Moffatt comments on the £2.5m to be spent on developing the Oriental Gardens, comparing it unfavourably with the £6.6m to be spent on Sefton Park.

I do wish people would look at the whole problem, and possibly the plans, before making these comments.

Reg Cox, Riverside

Last chance

GIVEN the recent atrocious and unseasonal weather, readers may agree that environmental concerns and local knowledge should be top of the agenda when new housing or other developments are planned.

Yet our Government is attempting to jeopardise the environmental and social well-being of our region via its Planning White Paper. It aims to speed up the planning process for major infrastructure projects like airports, power stations, roads and waste incinerators by cutting local communities out of major planning decisions that will affect their neighbourhoods.

A new report How Green is My Region? (available from Friends of the Earth, WWF and Campaign to Protect Rural England) shows that national government policies already prevent a healthier set of plans coming forward at regional level. Now the Government proposes to set up an unaccountable national Commission that could give the green light to large-scale developments, while local residents would have no right to a say.

Equally worrying is the White Paper’s suggestion that we lift the recent restrictions on building out of town supermarkets. This from a government that claims to support our city centres and market towns.

The Planning White Paper is currently in a consultation period and I would urge readers to take the opportunity to comment at http://www.communities.gov.uk/ index or write to your MP and to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears, before August 17.

It may be a last chance to safeguard both your local environment and your right to a voice on local issues.

Frank Kennedy, NW Regional Campaigns Co-ordinator, Friends of the Earth

No power

MAY I say how much I agree with Michael Kane, of Wavertree (Letters, Daily Post, July 17) regarding the situation south Liverpool residents find themselves in with the bus service to certain parts of the city centre.

Though I very much welcome the 48a Arriva service from Southport to John Lennon Airport, which does serve the Old Hall Street area, I have been campaigning for some time to have another bus station on the north side of the City, to encourage the bus companies to serve the area.

Don't forget, the companies are commercial organisations and Merseytravel has not had the power since 1986 to direct where the routes can go.

I have also repeatedly suggested that the Churchill Way South flyover should be a dedicated bus route, avoiding the Queen Square bottleneck, in and out of the City at peak times. Perhaps one day someone might take notice.

Cllr Peter Millea, Lib-Dem Leader, MPTA

More democracy

IT IS great news that the unelected regional assemblies are to be abolished.

For years, these bodies have existed irrespective of the opposition of the vast majority of people to the EU's regionalisation agenda.

Most insulted, of course, have been those voters in the North East who overwhelmingly rejected regionalisation in the 2004 referendum, only to see an unelected regional assembly continue to exist.

Few will be sorry to see the back of these bodies.

The Government's alternative, though, of giving all their powers to Regional Development Agencies is deeply flawed and risks continuing the mistakes of regional assemblies under another name.

Instead of increasing the power of these quangos, we should be returning these powers back down to the local level where they can be democratically controlled.

With Gordon Brown preaching a mantra of increased democratic involvement and accountability, this is an opportunity for him to show that he means it.

Mark Wallace, Campaign Manager, The Freedom Association

Poverty pay

YOUR report "Liverpool leads the poverty league" (Daily Post, July 18) omits one important fact: it is not just a question of people living off benefits – many of the people classed by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as living in poverty are in work.

This is because the national minimum wage is set at a level too low to raise people above poverty levels.

I believe that everyone in full- time work should be paid a "living wage" set at a level high enough to raise them out of poverty. I am not alone in this.

I am running a petition on the 10 Downing Street website for a living wage and an end to poverty pay which on Wednesday went over 1,000 signatures. I would urge all your readers to sign my petition at http://petitions. pm.gov.uk/living-wage-2007/

Nick Wall, Wallasey

Dis-assembled

AFTER years of waste and nonsense, finally the NW Regional Assembly is to be dissolved and the taxpayers of this region will not be imposed on to support the assembly, its five sub-regional offices or its office in Brussels.

The UK Independence Party has campaigned long and hard for the abolition of this quango but now that it is going it is sad that its replacement is likely to be just as expensive and unaccountable to the people of the North West.

It will be accountable, though – accountable to the EU Commission, another unelected and unwanted body.

Daniel Oxley UKIP

Black beauty

THE commission for racial equality has poked its nose into the UK Black Beauty Contest, criticising the event by claiming it discourages integration with white girls, when in fact the competition paves the way for facilitating a challenge to “white supremacy”.

John Richards, Wallasey