Thursday 16 June 2011

A 'bright glimmer of hope' as Camelot's guardian angels move in to No.21

Madryn Street, Liverpool - emptied and 'tinned-up' by the council at huge expense.
21 Madryn Street is now occupied. A young couple (and their dog) moved in, officially, yesterday. The news elicited the following response from Jonathan Brown of the Merseyside Civic Society:

'SAVE's ability to occupy their house on Madryn Street within a week of purchase is further proof Liverpool's solid Victorian terraces have a sustainable future, even after years of planning blight. 

With 20 applications to the agents Camelot, it is obvious to everyone that local social landlord claims of 'low demand' and abandonment are simply a self-serving myth, aimed at grabbing acres of land at an artificially devalued price.

Just imagine how easy (and cheap) it would be to revive the Welsh Streets if Liverpool council were willing to lift the threat of demolition, and offer the properties back to local firms and families for reuse and refurbishment.

It is high time housing ministers Grant Shapps and Andrew Stunnell call an inquiry into housing associations' use of public funds to write off perfectly attractive neighbourhoods, when the country is in the grip of the worst housing crisis since World War 2.   

Is it not an obscenity that ten thousand similar terraces have been emptied of their residents at great expense and left to rot, simply so the land they stand on can be handed to development driven quangos for private profit?

21 Madryn Street represents a bright glimmer of hope in the twilight streets benighted by Pathfinder's grotesque addiction to the bulldozer.  For the sake of over twenty thousand people on Liverpool's waiting list, and millions more in acute housing need across Britain, we must hope it drives away the long shadow cast by the great housing market renewal scandal.'

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