Letters to the Editor - 02nd May 2008

May 2 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

We owe a lot to Heseltine

IT WAS good to read the tribute by Sir Trevor Jones to Lord Heseltine on his visit to Liverpool on Tuesday. Merseyside owes a great deal to Michael Heseltine, who played such an important role in turning the city around from the chaos and incompetence of the Militant years.

In the aftermath of the Toxteth riots, he hired a coach to take leading figures in commerce and industry on a tour to show them the state of the city, and to impress on them the need for them to help bring in investment, and set up youth training programmes to give unemployed youngsters a chance for a better future.

He brought the International Garden Festival to Liverpool against competition from other cities. The object of the festival was to reclaim land so blighted by industrial use that no private capital would be invested in developing it for other purposes. The festival also focused positive attention on Liverpool – an almost impossible task in those circumstances – and brought international as well as national grants.

I was a freelance journalist at this time doing PR for the festival, as well as editing the official brochure. I found it immensely difficult to counter the feeling that money was being spent on the festival, which could and should be used to build houses, when the reality was that it was not available for any other purpose, and Liverpool was extremely lucky to have got the festival.

Michael Heseltine’s initiative brought results in youth training schemes – including one in which I was involved, at Jacobs in Aintree – and it is gratifying that he is now able to see the city staging such a strong comeback.

Liverpool went through a very bad time and lost valuable years in coping with the changing world economy. Other cities, especially Glasgow with a similar background, have done much better.

At last we are able to look to the future with a renewed confidence.

Walter Huntley, by email

Friends forever

IT IS with surprise that I note in David Bartlett's story on National Museums Liverpool and its Friends organisation (28.4.08) some suggestion that NML has acted in haste and without due consideration in withdrawing support from the Friends organisation and setting up a new “in-house” supporters' group.

The Friends can be in no doubt of their value to NML. Their very existence is testimony to their past goodwill and desire to help. Their generosity is acknowledged at each one of the galleries, museums or exhibitions they have supported.

However, presentations to them over the last three years requesting backing for Sudley House, the International Slavery Museum, The Museum of Liverpool and the connecting Waterfront landscape project have met with only negative response. Visitor figures at Sudley and the ISM have since reached record levels. The Museum of Liverpool will be a serious addition to the cultural life of the whole country.

The Waterfront project will be a major new tourist attraction. So, when the chairman of the Friends publicly attacks NML's aims and achievements, questions must be asked about whether he speaks for the Friends membership as a whole and whether such speeches are, indeed, the acts of a friend?

The decision to withdraw NML support from the Friends was taken with great regret, every acknowledgment of past Friends' generosity and the hope that as many as possible of the old Friends would, as invited, become Founder Friends of the new supporters' group. Many have said they will and NML welcomes them warmly.

Gillian Reynolds MBE, Trustee, National Museums Liverpool

Is Kirkby Liverpool?

I WAS interested to hear the latest instalment in Everton Football club's proposed migration to Kirkby. The scheme is naturally attractive to Knowsley Council and would in their terms be a great stride forward in putting this rather disjointed civic abstraction "on the map”.

For Knowsley, having EFC in their borough would at last associate them with something that has an existence outside the rarified confines of town hall minutes and agendas. But it is a scenario that leaves a few big issues tantalisingly unresolved. Bill Kenwright and Peter Kilfoyle MP have both opined that Kirkby is "really" part of Liverpool anyway and that local government boundaries are a minor irrelevance.

So what happens if Everton are ever crowned Premier League or FA Cup champions? Are they anticipating the usual bus tour round the boulevards of the city, culminating with the usual St George's Hall ceremonials, or are we to imagine an altogether less prepossessing scene at Huyton civic centre?

How would Knowsley's civic big- wigs respond if, when it came to the potentially glamorous crunch, Everton were to reclaim their city identity? Far from putting the borough on the map, it is a relationship that might only confirm Knowsley's status as a piece of municipal fiction.

Alan Churchman

Wirral could profit

LIVING in Wirral, I welcome the Kirkby proposal for a stadium, Tesco and 50 shops. With extra retail on their doorstep, residents will surely feel the need to travel to Liverpool less, that means the revived tram proposal could be binned and the Tunnel Tolls, a major financial contributor to the line, could be reduced.

Neil Carver, Great Meols

Crime clarification

I WRITE In response to the letter from BW Hale “Caution over crime” (Tuesday, April 29). The National Crime Recording Standards (NCRS) determine what offences are recorded by the police as crime, not the outcome of what happens to the offender as suggested. Warnings can be issued in respect of some offences such as cannabis possession for personal use; however; NCRS still requires the offence to be recorded as a crime. When comparing 2006/07 to 2007/08, Merseyside Police reported crime by 18% or 28,274 victims. In the same period, nearly 7,000 more offenders were arrested – an increase of 12%.

For 32% of all recorded crime, the offender received a sanction. This means they were charged or summonsed to court, cautioned, reprimanded or given a final warning, or dealt with by way of fixed penalty. This exceeds the targets set by the Police Authority by over 5%.

There is still much work to be done and certainly no room for complacency. I am very proud of what Merseyside Police has achieved and confident that our Total War on Crime and Total Care for Victims strategy is proving effective in reducing crime in Merseyside.

Bernard Hogan-Howe, Chief Constable of Merseyside

Pedestrian problems

PAVEMENTS and walkways are designed for pedestrians.

However, people are regularly squeezed out and forced off pavements by parked vehicles, wheelie bins, overhanging vegetation, building materials and rubble. The Wirral and Chester branch of Living Streets (the national charity formerly known as the Pedestrians Association) has recently been set up to work towards making people aware of the problems that pedestrians have to put up with. What are your experiences of walking along pavements and walkways?

Share your views with us. Join us in campaigning for a safer environment for pedestrians.

To find out more, see www.livingstreetswirralchester.org.uk or email towalksafely@googlemail.com

Wirral & Chester Branch of Living Streets

Not all hooligans

AN EX-PAT of Liverpool, I have been living in Northern Spain for 11 years, where watching football on TV is almost a religion. We now get all Liverpool matches direct from Anfield, so I was shocked to be asked, if all the “Liverpool Hooligans” always sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at every match?

I assured my fellow match viewers that the singing was indeed a true and moving tradition. I also pointed out that not all the supporters are hooligans, my own son having been at the Heysel and Hillsborough matches, thankfully, eventually arriving home, shocked but safe.

But I thought it sad that the small percentage of negative news has given people this impression of Liverpool supporters in general.

Nina Deus, Galicia

No advance warning

BROUGHTON Hall and Cardinal Heenan schools in West Derby have plans to rebuild.

So, did the council give residents adequate advance warning and information? Did they invite residents to the community exhibition for design proposals held a couple of weeks ago?

No-one in my road was aware, and we are only yards away from a proposed main entrance.

Work is due to start in August. So much for public consultation.

JST, West Derby

No need to change

I AM a parishioner of Blessed Sacrament Church, in Aintree. For some years, we have had a 12 noon mass on Saturday which fulfilled the Sunday obligation. This was suddenly changed after Easter to 4.30 in the afternoon, which is not a convenient time for me and probably many others. We were not told the reason why the time had to be changed. The mass was very well attended and was mainly for elderly or sick people. It was nice and peaceful. I have always been a church attender and am sad to have problems getting there now.

We already have one evening mass on a Sunday at 5pm, so don’t really need two later ones.

Mrs MK Hughes, Aintree

Very bad timing

WHO in their wisdom decided that this was a good time to turn Sefton Park, one of the great features of our city, into a building site?

With so many visitors expected to the city during our Capital of Culture year, surely this could have been better timed, especially as it houses the beautiful Palm House, which I am sure many people will be interested to see in all its magnificence.

Rose Lynch, L19