Wednesday 24 September 2014

St Mary's Road - Pocket Places event this week

The Pocket Places team are holding a "Design Workshop" on St Mary's Road on Friday (26th) It's part of them getting out and about talking to local people about what could be done to improve the shared space on St Mary's Road.  As luck would have it,Friday is market day so there should be a fair few people around.

The event takes place outside the Co op between 10 and 2 so do pop along if you are free.

There will be other events, not just later this year but into next year so don't worry if you can't make it to this one.

Monday 15 September 2014

Decision coming on bus lanes

The City Council's Cabinet is due to decide what to do about Liverpool's bus lanes when it meets on 10 October.

Before then there'll be a meeting for further comments and discussion.  You can see the paperwork for the earlier meeting , which takes place on 22 Sept, at this link.

I sent in a comment about the bus lane suspension when it first happened.  I felt, and still do, that some bus lanes are needed to make sure that those relying on public transport can get around as quickly as possible.  Clearly some lanes were pointless.  The one at Horrocks Avenue springs to mind.  But others were doing a job.  I felt that the Council should have looked at bus lanes in groups rather than closing the lot of them down all at once like that.  However we are where we are.

Two things spring to mind from reading the papers available.  Firstly, the officers writing the paper seem very keen to rebut points made by some.  Their response to points made about cycling is a good example of this.  Cyclists know the bus lanes were not ideal, but there is no guarantee that better provision is near and with cycling being encouraged more in Liverpool, the bus lanes at least would have provided some feeling of protection. (I have, I will admit, gone onto the pavement in a couple of places recently because of the level of traffic in what was the bus lane). The report talks about the width of the bus lanes not meeting the Council's aspirations for cyclists.  Fair enough but this is only meaningful if those aspirations are about to become a reality and it is the bus lanes preventing them doing that.

Secondly, there has been some work done which will result in a second report.  For some bizarre reason this report is secret until October (ie until after people have a chance to speak at the 22 September meeting).  The reason for this secrecy revolves around people making up their mind before the Cabinet meets.  I will be amazed if many of the Cabinet haven't already made up their mind but it seems very odd for a report paid for by the public purse and as part of a decision making process is withheld from part of that process.  It will be interesting to see if anyone challenges this.

Looking at the paperwork, more comments were received complaining about the removal of bus lanes than saying it was a good idea.  Because names and addresses are blanked out though it's impossible to see how many of these comments are from organisations (and therefore representing more people) and how many are from individuals.

Thursday 11 September 2014

Planning applications in our area - update 11 September

There's a proposal to create two skateparks in South Liverpool - one at Otterspool and one at Dingle Bank in Garston.

The Otterspool application is now open for comments with all the plans and other paperwork on line  The deadline is 1 October and you can see the info at this link.  (Please bear in mind that the bulk of the info is in a bit called Related Documents - scroll down and click)

The Dingle Bank paperwork isn't on line yet.  When it is, you should find it at this link.

UPDATE: Dingle Bank paperwork is now in and the comments section is open.

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Let us have your words!

The nice people at Pocket Places, the project looking at how we can impove St Mary's Road, are doing a temporary art activity this weekend (13th).

This will include stencilling some parts of poetry or quotes about Garston and/.or St Mary's Road (I want to stress the word temporary at this point!!)

They are busy contacting local poets and looking at things already written, but are keen for some other sentences.

So, if you know Garston and/or St Mary's Road and want to send a sentence in , please do.

I said I would collect in some and pass them on.  All you need to do is let me have a sentence about your thoughts about Garston, an aspect of Garston or St Mary's Road.  Tell me your name too (and tell me if you prefer anonymity).  And then e mail this to me at paulakeaveney@yahoo.co.uk by Thursday (11th).

I can't guarantee which ones will be used, but it would be great to give the artists lots of material.

And if you want to go along to the event... it's outside the TSB from 10 till 2.  Annoyingly I can't go but hopefully the sun will shine!

Planning applications in our area

I blogged ages ago about a plan to turn the unused building on Wellington Street in Garston into flats.This is the building that was used for the "Garston Embassy" and was the Tochy Tech a long time before that.  After a huge delay the plans are now about to go to the planning committee for a decision.  The committee meets on 16th September .  You'll find the details at this link (scroll down for the agenda item, it's towards the bottom). 

16th September also sees a licensing committee meeting.  This will make a decision on whether to let the proposed new Tesco on Booker Avenue sell alcohol.  (This isn't the same as a decision on whether a shop can be built there in the first place - legally these alcohol sales decisions are separate).  You can see the agenda at this link.

Thursday 4 September 2014

Greenhill nursery planning application - comments now open

The planning application for housing on the old Greenhill nursery site is on the Council website and the comments function is now on.  The on line comment deadline is 2 October.  All the info, including plans, is in a bit of the section called Related documents.  You can link to the info here
here.