SAVE MADRYN STREET campaign is launched in Madryn Street, 25th August 2010

LETTER FROM WELSH STREETS HOME GROUP

Daily Post article web link here

Blight concerns if Housing Market Renewal Initiative collapses

GRANT SHAPPS RESPONDS TO THE MADRYN STREET CAMPAIGN

Shapps moves to stop bulldozers demolishing Ringo Starr’s birthplace

Housing Minister Grant Shapps has today called for a temporary reprieve to the demolition of Ringo Starr's birthplace to ensure the people of Liverpool have a chance to have their say in what happens to what many consider to be a culturally important building

He has written to Liverpool City Council asking them to halt the planned demolition to give the local community and other interested organisations an opportunity to put forward alternative viable preservation options

A special meeting of Liverpool City Council’s Planning Committee is expected to take place in January where the demolition of Ringo Starr’s former home and other houses will be considered. If approved the council would give two weeks notice of demolition.

The Government has received a request from SAVE Britain’s Heritage to direct Liverpool City Council to dispose of an area. The Public Request to Order Disposal (PROD) process allows citizens to write to the Secretary of State, Communities and Local Government, requesting action be taken regarding under/ unused land (including buildings) and he may direct that the land be disposed of. SAVE hope that this will help save these houses from demolition. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is considering this request in the normal way.

But this request clearly demonstrates the strength of feeling locally and prompted Mr Shapps to call for a delay to demolition to see if an alternative community-led solution is possible and to ensure that there is sufficient time for a full and proper consideration of SAVE Britain’s Heritage request.

The letter from the Welsh Streets Home Group

Welsh Streets Home Group, C/O the secretary, 40 Kelvin Grove, Liverpool, L8 3UE, mobile 07971 472707, landline 0151 726 0348 welshstreetshomegroup@googlemail.com
24.11.10

Dear Grant Shapps,

I am writing as the secretary of the Welsh Streets Home Group. We are a residents group in the Toxteth area of Liverpool, formed when we discovered the HMRI Pathfinder plans to demolish our homes and as it turned out a large part of our city. In 2006 we joined other residents associations and took a group of Conservative politicians around the city on a tour of the HMRI devastation. The group included David Cameron, Michael Heseletine, Caroline Spellman and Alistair Burt. (They seemed appalled and said they disagreed with the scheme. ) In a nutshell we have campaigned for nearly seven years to minimise demolition, increase renovation and thus provide more homes for less money. The majority of Welsh Streets residents expressed this view and sought renovation but the HMRI and City Council re-ran the ballot until they had a majority for demolition. So far our streets remain, as do plans to demolish them and it is with a sense of exasperation that we contact you now. Please read on - a pdf of this letter is attached if a long e-mail makes you feel dizzy.

In the past couple of years we have located the expertise, and more importantly funds form the private sector which would allow a great many houses in Liverpool to be renovated, re-insulated and returned to use. There are three principle participants in this offer so far which would see homes in existing buildings can be made available for both sale and rent at little or no cost to the public purse. This would allow the public money saved , to be used for ensuring the new build housing which were wanted by a proportion of the community.

Princess Park Housing Co-op who want to renovate a number of Welsh Streets Houses for affordable rental to people on low incomes. They formally made this offer to Liverpool City Council in writing in November 2009.

The Empty Homes Agency Homesteading Scheme – a system thought which private sponsors provide some support for people wanting to ‘self renovate’ (like self build where people work on renovating their own home building up sweat equity towards a deposit). This would allow people on low earning access to buying homes.

Regeneration Express an award winning not for profit company have offered to acquire, renovate and return to the market Kelvin Grove in the Welsh Streets along with many other HMRI blighted streets in Liverpool. They would make homes available to local owner occupiers, as they have already done in their successful, award winning scheme in Tancred Rd, Anfield (trading then as the Affordable Homes Development Company) They have formally made this offer to Liverpool City Council in writing repeatedly in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Liverpool City Council have not responded. Some of the reports they are using to support their continued desire to demolish homes are flawed and inaccurate as can easily be demonstrated if you want to meet and look at the documents in question (Notably the DTZ Sustainability Report presented November 2009)

We have literally hundreds of residents letters which can be viewed on request. All testify to the massive opposition to the HMRI demolitions. Nobody denies there are residents who seek demolition and new homes. The question seems to be how can we provide the new homes without destroying the old ones whilst there are people with the money and desire to mend and occupy the existing houses.

We have read with great concern in today’s paper ( Liverpool Daily Post 24.11.10 ) that Joe Anderson is coming to London today to lobby for additional funds for Newheartlands the Merseyside Pathfinder. He has been reported in the local press recently mourning the loss of the scheme’s massive funds arguing that it leaves people in limbo, unable to seek new housing, sell their properties or move on. He has spoken to residents who seek the demolition of their home, and see that route as the only way of getting decent housing. He has not so far spoken to us (residents seeking to keep their homes) HMRI and Liverpool City Council Officers and Councillors have been informed in writing repeatedly of the various alternatives to demolition and all are aware that many people who have remained on threatened sites have done so because they continue to hope the alternatives to demolition will prevail. We think that will rather depend on leadership from the coalition government.

There was no prior warning that Joe Anderson leader of LCC was planning to speak to you today, and we can see that it may be many days before you read this mail. As and when you do read it we ask that you will raise, forcefully the offers described above with Joe Anderson and the Merseyside HMRI. If Merseyside officials have claimed that more public funds, and more dereliction, more homelessness and more demolition is the only option you might like to look through some of the documents attached ; just some of the evidence of the financial an technical offers we are describing.

We felt it vital that you are aware that the HMRI in Liverpool has failed catastrophically. The failures were foreseen and forewarned by residents long before external heritage, environmentalists, economists, homeless charities and academics joined the criticism of the doomed regeneration theory. It is vital that you are not mislead, and vital that you are given a balanced and accurate oversight which allows resolution of problems the scheme has produced. It is as well to be aware than for the most part the scheme has been defended only by it’s own staff, and that has included paying for pieces in the press;

(http://browse.guardian.co.uk/search?search=They+used+to+call+it++rachmanism&sitesearch-radio=guardian&go-guardian=Search)

There is no reason to believe that the Newheartlands HMRI will be capable of solving the huge problems that they themselves have created. The scheme was badly planned, wasteful, bullying and illogical. The problems we are referring to include around 15,000 tinned up abandoned houses for which the local authority now has legal responsibility, around 23,000 people citywide who are in need of affordable rental homes and the un-met buyers demand for specifically roomy and solid Victorian terraced housing in the inner suburbs. There are many hundreds of people in the city, who had more than decent homes taken off them by the HMRI scheme who sought to demolish them. They may have stopped communicating about it, as they and their residents groups are now dispersed across the city, but they knew they had good houses and good communities and they wanted to keep them. The re-housing of these people lead to a huge waiting list for affordable homes in Liverpool , and effectively aided the hiking of prices in the private rental sector by reducing housing supply.

There are also large numbers of people desperate to buy renovate and re-inhabit the existing houses who have registered this interest with our residents group over the past six and a half years. Please do not underestimate the fury and frustration of Liverpool people that their city and it’s reputation have been damaged so badly by a New Labour folly. It is not too late to repair a great many of these houses, but it is as if the city has been frozen under a spell cast by the now discredited theories and disgracefully incompetent practices of the HMRI Pathfinder.

We accept there are huge problems here –we are trapped by HMRI blight. There is the legal and financial liability hanging over the city (and it’s property holding partners 2020 and Mouchel who issued a profit warning last month) There is the frustration of people who want to live in Toxteth but who can only access ex-housing association stock at inflated prices because that is all that is on the market. There are closed waiting lists for Housing Association homes. There are empty silences where the developers used to be and plans for grassing over demolition sites, where residents were promised new subsidised housing.

But it would be misleading to claim that residents are crying out for demolition. They are crying out for decent housing, and demolition lacks the economic, social, environmental or community benefits to warrant spending any more public money on it. Our legal advisors have said they think ‘Blight Orders” quoted by LCC’s leader today as some imminent threat can actually only issued by local authorities – so there is possibility of recompense for ordinary residents who are living with the scheme which we suspect only you can stop.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2010/11/24/blight-concerns-if-housing-market-renewal-initiative-collapses-92534-27703730/

Blight concerns if Housing Market Renewal Initiative collapses

It seems naive now that a group of academics from Birmingham University in 2002 should think the housing market could be tweaked by reducing supply and altering stock alone. We have all now seen for ourselves the housing market is governed by the availability and cost of borrowing and on local incomes.

It would be negligent beyond belief to give these clowns any more public money without insistence that the demolitions cease , and the renovations start. The coalition Government could easily prime the pump by reducing or removing VAT from renovations to bring it into line with new build on which VAT is not payable, and by linking with local training initiatives to provide local work , for local people on repair work ( retro eco-refit work). If there is a big society it will only be as big as it’s imagination. We all know these houses do not have to go to landfill dumps. Better dump the scheme.

yours sincerely

Nina Edge

secretary Welsh Streets Home Group, Liverpool

Who is the SAVE MADRYN STREET campaign for?

• It is NOT for Ringo who has enough homes of his own, so we aren't asking for donations or a whip-round for him, so anything personal against Ringo from the people of Liverpool that has been voiced, although important, is not relevant to this campaign : it is not for him.
  
• This IS for Beatles Fans Internationally who contribute millions to the local economy for hotels, restaurants etc. They come in their thousands to see the Beatles' sites so this is for them, the fans, past present and future
  

Myths and truths to clear up:

• Ringo was born at home, at 9 Madryn Street, and lived here until he was 5 years old, when he went to Admiral Grove (some have wrongly quote it as only a few months!)
  
• His parents divorced when he was 3 and his dad moved back in with his parents at 59 Madryn Street, where Ringo spent a lot of time
  
• His maternal auntie lived at 21 Madryn Street
  
• His best friend Marie lived at 10 Madryn Street
  

Liverpool City Council

• Originally, under the Labour Govt. this was a Pathfinder area which in 2005 started to empty properties and move residents out. The plan was to build lovely new houses. You can understand that as an objection to what we are saying and doing.
• Under the current government, and the new Labour City Council, the notice says they will demolish the houses just to then seed the ground for grass and put a fence up!
• There are no new houses, so why can't we save even just Ringo's and a couple of others, restore them to 1940s and let them be a Ringo "museum" and education centre for school children to study social history in a Victorian house in 20th Century Liverpool.
  
• The choice surely is: make a big grassy area or invest in the heritage of Liverpool
  

LATEST NEWS

14th June 2012 - RINGO'S home has been saved, along with a
number of the local streets, though many will still be demolished.
Thanks for all your support, and to the Welsh Streets Residents'
Group for their tireless campaign. NEWS HERE

17th June 2011 - UK Government steps in again to halt any demolition plans as the whole site needs an Environmental Impact Assessment Details here

19th April 2011 - Council vote to demolish but Government
steps in

See here for the full story

20th January 2011 - Council Leader Joe Anderson in positive response

Story - click here

20th January 2011 - GREAT NEWS FOR THE WELSH STREETS

Story - click here

16th January 2011 - Latest comments by Grant Shapps, and Liverpool's leader Joe Anderson responds too.

Details click here

Liverpool's Welsh Streets residents did not overwhelmingly support
the destruction of their homes as Cllr Steve Munby (not a councillor
for that ward) suggests (Letters, 5 January). The council's own records
from July 2005 showed a majority opposed. In Madryn Street itself
the vote was 35 to 1 against.

Of course the City council then sponsored a well-resourced campaign
and ran the area down until they could hold another ballot and get the
result they wanted.

DETAILS HERE

Media Coverage of Grant Shapps' announcement:

Click Liverpool
Granada TV News
BBC News
BBC News
Sky News

This is encouraging as a precedent has now been set - click here

Heritage group calls for sale
of abandoned Liverpool homes

Liverpool City Council have protected the brickwork from being destroyed - who says they don't care?

Liverpool Daily Post 26th October 2010 Quoted rebuilding costs are queried by experts

Daily Mail 27th October 2010 - covers the story too as does the Mirror Newspaper 27th October 2010

Canadian TV have also covered the story 27th October 2010

Fans have been taking bricks from the front of Ringo's house! Media watch here from the

Express 3rd October 2010

Click Liverpool

Are The Beatles important to Liverpool? The Liverpool Echo seems to think so.

Liverpool Echo article

What Can Be Done?

There is a fantastic case study in Tancred Road in Anfield which has been renovated and the original houses saved. All this at no cost to Liverpool City Council or the council tax payers.

Read all about it here

Tancred Road, Anfield

THE MADRYN STREET FESTIVAL

Renowned Italian musicians Rolando Gianbelli and the Marco Zappa band made a pilgrimage to Madryn Steeet to play an impromptu acoustic gig on Saturday morning (28th August).

Rolando, who is also President of the Italian national Fab Four fan club "Beatlesiani" is appalled at plans to demolish the house where Richard Starkey was born.

THE MADRYN STREET PLAN

Liverpool City Council has confirmed that they intend to demolish the properties in the Dingle, known as the "Welsh Streets". This area of mid-19th century two-up two-down terraced houses has been earmarked for demolition since 2005.

More than just another area of houses, this includes Madryn Street where, on 7th July 1940, Richard Starkey was born in 9, Madryn Street. Starkey went on to become the most famous drummer in the world: Ringo Starr.

John Lennon's birthplace, Oxford Street Maternity Hospital has been saved and converted into apartments.

Paul McCartney's birthplace, Walton Hospital, has been saved and converted into luxury apartments.

George Harrison's birthplace, 12 Arnold Grove, is still lived in.

Ringo Starr's birthplace is under threat - please help us save it.

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