Letters to the Editor - 14th July 2008

Jul 14 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

What a great holiday city

MY WIFE and I decided to spend a long weekend in Liverpool this year and celebrate the culture. We’ve both worked briefly in the city, at the Everyman and the Playhouse, but, as soft southerners, a trip north is a bit of an adventure, frankly. People mocked: “A holiday in Liverpool? Contradiction in terms.”

Guess what? We had a ball. Many congratulations to you all for the welcome, for the vibe, for the friendliness, the humanity. It was overwhelming.

We started in Crosby on that lonely beach full of Gormley’s figures staring out at the windfarm like Philip K Dick’s characters wondering about their reality. Then Saturday was a Beatles day – John and Paul’s childhood homes, courtesy of the National Trust, and Colin and John who live in them and curate and guided us. Thanks, fellas – second to none.

Then it was to Mathew Street and The Grapes – where we watched the women’s singles final – then on to the Hard Day’s Night Hotel , a marvellous addition to the city centre, superbly realised, beautifully done.

The atmosphere in the Cavern was amazing and, as we walked away, my wife Jenny remarked that Liverpool reminded her of New Orleans, where we went on honeymoon.

Drenched in music and history, the following day we visited the Slavery Museum. Kudos to the city for this magnificent museum – an acknowledgement that Liverpool’s power is built not only on the ingenuity of the Irish, but on African sweat and blood, too. My wife’s ancestors were slaves and she felt totally empowered and strengthened by her visit to this terrible and moving exhibition.

In the evening (after a swift Lennonesque pint at the Philharmonic) we saw Paul Simon and sang along with 10,000 Scousers. It was as near as we could get in the summer to being at Anfield. Walk On Liverpool, you should be proud of this year. Oh, and every single taxi driver was courteous, knowledgeable, helpful, proud and funny. What a great city. If only the English knew!

Ralph Brown, Brighton

Beatlesmania

IT WAS wonderful to walk around Liverpool last week and see the whole city out to support Beatles Day.

I decided to visit the new Liverpool One shopping centre with my two grand-children and had completely forgotten about the idea.

But by the time we got off the train and walked into town we were surrounded by the sounds of the Fab Four and people walking round with smiles on their faces.

It is proof, if it were ever needed, that The Beatles really do have a long-lasting legacy. The best thing of all, though, was that it was all for two very good causes.

I hope this wasn’t a one-off and will continue for many years to come.

Mrs C Jones, Birkdale

Disappointment

I WAS really pleased that Liverpool was to hold a Beatles Day. But what a total disappointment. Other than one band down by Liverpool One, I didn’t see anything particularly special on Thursday. And, anyway, isn’t the Mathew Street Festival basically four days of Beatles Days?

A Hannah, Heswall

Good news

I AM really looking forward to going to see The Beat Goes On exhibition at the World Museum.

Liverpool has such a strong and tradition of music. I was also pleased to read in Vicky Anderson’s article (Daily Post, July 11) that all kinds of music have been given prominence and not just pop.

It is good news for the whole city.

JP Williams, Chester

Obsessive

HAVING read two full pages of financial information regarding the plight of the Beetham Organisation, I cannot help but feel that your newspaper has become somewhat obsessive and lost objectivity when reporting their business activities and those of other private property developers in the city. Indeed, Bill Gleeson seems captivated by the establishment, and pours scorn on the entrepreneurs.

Earlier in the week, Beetham again made headline news over an additional payment they are having to make for the purchase of the site of West Tower, a site which they bought for a remarkably cheap price from Liverpool City Council. If there is to be blame apportioned for the value of this transaction, which seems to be the underlying theme of your story, then it lies firmly at the door of the council who, after all, have a raft of property and legal experts to advise them on the price and use of properties being sold.

Private developers in Liverpool are responsible for kick-starting the city’s renaissance, they take massive risks and are rewarded accordingly. Had matters been left to central and local government, then we would still be stuck in the 1980s. Now that the downturn is upon us the, private property developers are losing millions of pounds in cash and value and some of them will not survive.

Rather then kicking them when they are down and reporting bad news which can only damage them, it may be more advisable to offer them a modicum of support in this the Culture Year because when the dust finally settles and the funding from Europe runs dry, it is the private developers who will again bring Liverpool back to where it once was, and that job is not done yet by a long, long way.

Samuel Beilin, group chief executive, TRB Group

Acceptable idea

IN YOUR Opinion column of July 11, you state: “There has, of course, been fierce and determined opposition to the scheme by a group of environmental campaigners and local residents, who want the area to be used as public parkland”.

Not true about local residents. Riverside Residents Association, representing 500+ homes on the other side of Riverside Drive, have at their AGMs of both 2006 and 2007, after full and detailed discussions of the scheme, which included the developers, have on both occasions voted in favour of the scheme, by a considerable majority. There were a few dissenters, but very few.

The environmentalists, few of whom live near the site, wish to keep the Festival Garden Site as it is at present, a dangerous eyesore on the main route into Liverpool from the south. Whereas the residents who Šcare about the site, wish to see it improved and developed as an amenity for the citizens of Liverpool.

The Langtree/Maclean plan is not ideal, but it is funded and it is acceptable to the local residents.

Reg Cox, Hon Sec, Riverside Residents Association

Wait and see

RE: THE Garden Festival site. Once again, campaigners fighting to save green open space have lost a battle with government, council chiefs and developers. But I feel it will be a Pyrrhic victory for both sides, I myself fall into the category of the Nimby, local resident and save the festival site campaigner.

We will have to wait and see if the developers, in the face of the current economic climate, where the price of flats – or should I say 1,300 homes – are falling faster than Warren Bradley’s popularity, will ever be built.

At the present time, with the new shopping development at Liv- erpool One, increasing traffic on Riverside Drive and the thought of buying a flat on a former waste tip, it will be down to Joe Public to make that decision. I fear that, by the time our Capital of Culture ten- ure is over, so will be this dream.

Let’s hope so, and this scheme ends up at the bottom of the Mersey where it belongs!

Eric Moffat, via email

Unjust wars

A SMETHURST’S letter advocating the re-introduction of National Service (Letters, July 7), while undoubtedly well-intentioned, reflects the general muddle-headedness of mainstream opinion on this subject.

The Second World War was an anti-Fascist struggle – a just war. However, since 1945 the Western media has exploited the memory of WWII in order to whip up support for American-led wars which have been far from just.

For over 40 years, the Soviet Union, to a certain extent, acted as counterbalance to the US. With its collapse, since 1990 Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan have all been attacked to satisfy Wall Street’s thirst for profit and power.

The mainstream media have presented these campaigns as “humanitarian interventions” and scholarly estimates of 250,000 Iraqis killed in the first Gulf War alone have been all but ignored.

Before we contemplate the re-introduction of National Service, surely we must end once and for all our country’s subservience to the interests of US big business.

A Molyneux, Maghull

Dodd’s donation

ISN’T Ken Dodd a good sort, giving all that money to charity (“£25,000 boost for charities”, Daily Post, July 10).

He has always done lots of work for charity and even now he is getting old he hasn’t had a break.

I was impressed to hear about the two-hour show that raised all this money.

It was good of him to give up him time, even though I suspect two hours was a short show for him, given that the audience usually misses the last train home.

More celebrities should be like him and do their bit for charity.

Mrs P West, Formby

Real justice

IT SEEMS that these days most ordinary, honest people are looking for fair play and justice in life. Perhaps we should then move towards upholding the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law and then maybe even the lawyers, with their loopholes, would find themselves on the receiving end of some justice for obstructing its course.

Name and address supplied