We are doing really well with this campaign. There has been massive support and we are building excellent local and social media support. But Liverpool Council are still selling off the Meadows. They still want to dig up the most beautiful green space in South Liverpool for expensive, half a million pound houses.
What should we do next?
The Campaign is considering the next steps and how to keep up the pressure over the summer – before the council advertise for developers.
An exchange of emails between formal Lib Dem Councillor Jan Clein and Mayor Joe Anderson has confirmed that the Meadows are within Sefton Park Boundary. At the start of our campaign to stop the sell off, Joe stated that they were not. (at the first Regeneration Committee in April, on air with Radio Merseyside and in written answers to campaigners). The land registry title deeds also describe the Meadows as Sefton Park.
The Mayor has called the Meadows ‘Incidental Open Space’ – words which are usually used to describe verges and small bits of land left over from development. This was also used in the Council’s Loss of Open Space Notice. The Meadows are certainly not incidental open space. All of the council’s greenspace reports and open space planning documents list the Meadows as one of the highest value greenspace sites in Liverpool, with the highest category of protection.They are prime parkland, within the historic Sefton Park boundary, within the Sefton Park Conservation Area, and an important part of this great city’s heritage. They provide a huge range of ecosystem services, regulating air, water, pollution, climate – costed by UK govt and European Commission reports at millions of pounds. They are important to health and are an important recreation and amenity space. NONE OF THIS IS COVERED BY ‘INCIDENTAL OPEN SPACE’.
We achieved a record 1,200 formal objections to Liverpool council’s Notice of Loss of Open Space, which Liverpool council are cynically using to try and sell off Sefton Park Meadows. We handed our objections personally to Nick Kavanagh, Director of Regeneration(!) and the Regeneration Committee meeting on Thurs 13th June. We were allowed 5 mins to speak. Nick Kavanagh stated again that this Land Disposal process does not require any discussion of the Meadows’ huge environmental values, heritage character, or loss of amenity – this will have to wait until a planning application is submitted.
Yet if the Meadows had been listed from April 2012 to March 2013 in their own formal assessment of sites being considered for housing or development (their Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment – known as SHLAA), this would have required formal assessment of the Meadows by an external consultant, then scrutiny by local councillors and local residents over several months. Strangely, the Meadows was not listed – but suddenly in March this year became a site to be sold for development – no process of consultation required, just a council vote along party lines,a tiny advert in the back pages of the Daily Post and 3 weeks to write in?!
Well, Mayor Anderson, Cllr Malcom Kennedy and Director of Regeneration, we have done this in huge numbers! Your own council e-petition supporting the sale has so far recorded 58 supporters. Can you do the maths?
You have another 2 days to send in objections to the selling off Sefton Park Meadows by Liverpool City Council. Deadline is 10am Friday 14th June 2013. We have over 1,000 objections so far and want to achieve a target of one of the highest number of objections to a loss of open space that the council has received if we can.
We also presented over 7,000 petitions to the council last Friday.
The campaign to stop the sale of our beautiful and valuable Sefton Park Meadows – part of the Sefton Parklands is NOT A DONE DEAL!
Email Legal.Planning@liverpool.gov.uk or send in to Property & Regeneration Team, Room 208 Municipal Buildings, Dale Street, Liverpool L2 2DH. QUOTE PRT/TIG/PARK AVENUE
PLEASE SEND US A COPY OR LET US KNOW YOU HAVE WRITTEN IN TO OBJECT. Email us at SaveSeftonParkMeadows@gmail.com
Thanks – let’s show Mayor Anderson and his Cabinet they can’t sell off valuable and historic Liverpool public open space around Sefton Park without a fight!
We achieved an incredible 7257 signatures on the Save Sefton Park Meadows petitions. This shows the huge level of opposition to the Mayor’s plans to build luxury housing on this valuable and outstandingly beautiful area of Sefton Parklands.
Thanks to everyone who signed and helped collect signatures over the last 3 months.
PLEASE COME AND JOIN US to hand in the petitions to Mayor Joe Anderson’s Cabinet on Friday 7th June at 8.30 am at the Town Hall. Bring your banners and show your opposition to this shortsighted and wrongheaded plan!
The campaign group has asked Cllr Sarah Jennings from the Liverpool Green Party, who started the original e-petition, to present the petitions as this is NOT A PUBLIC MEETING like other meetings we have attended and been able to speak at.
