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LCR Combined Authority & Metro Mayor General Thread

599K views 5K replies 218 participants last post by  CarloAnchovie 
#1 ·
It would appear that Liverpool is not seen as a likely candidate to be amongst the first group of 'city regions'. For more info see this report in the Echo.

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/...cy-of-storey-v-henshaw-battles-name_page.html

I'm hoping that the government will reject the recommendations suggested by the report and proceed anyway especially as the Storey / Henshaw debacle has been resolved.

If Liverpool loses out ...
 
#28 ·
If there are city regions then we will be left with the same 'problem' we had with the metropolitan counties.. i.e what to do with the rest.

I have always thought that St helens should be part of a bigger authority with Warrington rather than liverpool. Skem and Ormskirk in with the city... Ellesmere Port & Neston, Halton in Liverpool's city-region, as they naturally are.....also creates a nice bit of greenspace between L and M.

Warrington is now more in the Manc 'travel to work' region... for obvious reasons... until the mid 80s' it was in the Liverpool one.

We have the sophisticated 'Bay Area' for wider cultural afiliation... Mnac has Woollybackland!
 
#29 ·
The Daily Post piece today doesn't really fill me with any great hope.

The main jist is that it'll cut the quangos - good news, while allowing the city region to levy a 5% rate on businesses.

Other than that it's just a Merseyside County Council, not a real semi autonomous set up.
 
#30 ·
Fitzroy said:
And sorry, Poli but if I lived in Warrington, I would not take too kindly to notions of being incorporated into either city region! I'm driving up to Liverpool from NW London in about 50 minutes and one of the things I have noticed driving along the M56 is how Warrington and Widnes and Runcorn seem to fit together quite well as a separate (enough) region. I think we need to think more critically about the downside of being incorporated into 'city regions' for places like Warrington-Halton, Chester etc. The regionalist agenda just seems to want to consume vast areas on the back of dodgy stats! Critical appraisal is needed.
Good post. A Liverpool City Region would be multi-nodal, and I agree that Warrington and Halton need to be seen as an entity within any bigger structure (be that County, as presently, Region, as presently, or City Region - to come).
 
#31 ·
Conservative shadow cabinet meets in Liverpool.

Towards a renaissance

Leader
Monday March 6, 2006
The Guardian


Cities are back on the political agenda this week. Today the Conservative shadow cabinet meets in Liverpool accompanied by Michael Heseltine, who helped start the city's regeneration 25 years ago. Tomorrow David Miliband is due to deliver a major speech on Britain's urban renaissance. For most of human history the advance of civilisation was associated with the growth of cities. True, an electronic age is providing a new challenge to the old benefits of urban life - the concentration of workers and reduced transport costs. This is just one of many issues which need further debate. Where have we got to and how far have we got to go?

To begin with, take Liverpool, capital of culture in 2008. Like seven other regional cities identified by ministers two years ago, Liverpool is seeing a rebirth. The population in the city centre is now four times as large as 1990. Central Manchester's growth has been even faster. Expansion has been accompanied by more sustainable development in all city renewal areas: more use of brownfield sites (up from 56% in 1977 to 70% now) and with higher densities. Less than a decade ago, cities were still in decline. The populations of Liverpool and Manchester fell by a third in 25 years and over 500,000 jobs were lost in 20 major cities. Similarly, London lost population over seven decades, but is now embarked on its biggest planned expansion in 2,000 years.

There has been a more coherent and strategic approach helped by the first urban white paper for 23 years, published in 2000. The emphasis was on a coordinated strategy, dealing with a broad front. Ministers have listened to England's core cities group, which argued that investment in big cities is the key to the health of regional economies. And yet, as ministers concede, British cities will have to work even harder if they are to catch up with the best on the European mainland. Europe had such a large headstart. There have been stark messages too from the chair of the national urban task force, Lord (Richard) Rogers, the British architect. He has pointed to a number of handicaps British cities face compared with their continental competitors: a lack of power, particularly in the fields of transport and finance; overlapping but differently funded regeneration bodies; inadequate social housing; glaring and persistent social inequalities; cheaply-built fragmented housing isolated from surrounding communities; the migration of middle class families from cities in search of better schools.

One obvious call the Conservatives should make today is for a rein back on John Prescott's demolition plans in the north. Let there be more renovation than new build, on the lines of Manchester's Urban Splash projects. It would be good to hear from the Tories today on where they stand on the north-south divide. A Labour cabinet stuffed with northern MPs concluded that despite the widening economic divide, the great engine of Britain's economic growth, the south east, must be expanded. Redeveloping the north is as much in the interests of the south as the north. Without more regeneration, northern migration will continue as will housing demand on southern green spaces.

There are other questions raised by Thames Gateway, the country's largest development, involving some 200,000 extra homes in the next 30 years. A three-volume report from the LSE last year suggested the expansion was being built in the wrong way, with the wrong focus and the wrong priorities. Lord Rogers would add his worries over the standard of design. He dismisses current Thames developments as third-rate Dan Dare glass and Disneyland kitsch. Two other issues which need wider debate are the emergence of the doughnut city: a refurbished centre but still surrounded by decay; and the plight of smaller towns that have lost their rationale, such as mining communities or seaside resorts. There is no lack of issues. Let debate begin.
 
#32 ·
The patron saint of St-Michaels-in-the Hamlet is asked for his advice

Cameron turns to Heseltine in city revival bid

Patrick Wintour
Monday March 6, 2006
The Guardian


David Cameron will today accompany Lord Heseltine, the former Conservative deputy prime minister, and his shadow cabinet to Liverpool to symbolise the new Tory party's determination to revive the inner cities, and no longer be seen as exclusively the party of the leafy suburbs.
Lord Heseltine played a crucial role in the Thatcher administration in trying to revive Liverpool in the wake of the Toxteth riots in the mid-1980s. He feels his initiative helped revive the city centre, but more needs to be done through big capital projects to help the outer ring of estates.

The former environment secretary has agreed to Mr Cameron's request to head a task force to look at the problems of the inner cities. The initiative comes ahead of a report tomorrow prepared by the local government and communities minister, David Miliband, setting out the state of Britain's cities.
Mr Miliband wants to give Britain's cities greater economic powers and freedoms. He would also like to see a big city such as Birmingham consider the idea of a mayor along the lines of London. Labour is also looking to test the degree to which the new Tory commitment to affordable housing will be matched by policies, including a willingness to accept the construction of new estates in rural areas.

The Heseltine task force is expected to examine plans to back affordable housing for first-time buyers in urban areas, how to improve the quality of education in inner city schools, and a new approach to tackling crime and anti-social behaviour on council estates.

Mr Cameron's Tory party is making progress in the polls, but cities such as Liverpool, which once regularly elected Conservative MPs, are now Tory no go areas.

Which part of Liverpool will be the first to elect a Tory MP?!
 
#34 · (Edited)
A plus point for the Tories, apparently the last time the tories were in power in Liverpool, the city was doing quite well, was that in the 50s...! A few tories in the L.C.C mix would add something extra, and keep the Lib Dems and Labour on their toes maybe.

The only tory i would vote for would be Tarzan though. :)
Tarzan Returns

Dubbed "minister for Merseyside" and even "Mr Merseyside", Mr Heseltine aimed to persuade the private sector it was in their interests to help finance the regeneration of the inner city.

This site is fu@*ing annoyingly intermittant/slow, im limiting my posts, views now to avoid internet rage :gaah: :bleep:
 
#35 ·
I am sure Liverpool's Labour MPs would love to see a Tory revival, since it would increases their chances of holding on to their seats next time by taking votes off the lib dems.

I seem to recall there where massive swings to the Lib Dems at the last election, particularly in Wavertree, Garston and Riverside while yet again the tories only got a handful of votes, as has been the case in Liverpool for over 20 years.

The closest the tories will get to winning here will be in Wirral.
 
#36 ·
City survival

What is it about The Guardian? Maybe it unwittingly pisses on Liverpool's parade on a regular basis. From today's paper. (My emphasis)


Wednesday March 15, 2006

Local authorities must seize the chance to revive cities, says Peter Hetherington
The Guardian


Over three years ago, the Guardian produced a 20-page supplement titled Cities Reborn. While in part celebratory, it was meant to be challenging - balancing the upside of reborn city centres with the downside of rundown, partly abandoned neighbourhoods cheek by jowl with swanky penthouses. At the time, Brian Robson, head of Manchester University's Centre for Urban Policy Studies, noted that such a gulf between prosperity and squalor had never been more evident, with "the affluent young next to the impoverished poor".

Since then, much has improved. While searching questions need to be asked about the application of John Prescott's housing market renewal programme in some areas - too much demolition, perhaps, and a failure to bring local communities on board? - the deputy prime minister should be given credit for addressing a deep-seated problem on the edge of city centres.

Elsewhere, urban regeneration companies, underpinned by the government's regeneration agency, English Partnerships, have hastened the revival of centres themselves. In the case of Sheffield, for instance, that involves a new central core and reshaping the entire centre with new public squares, gardens, and much more. Nearby, Leeds and Manchester have been transformed beyond recognition. And Liverpool, still beset by decay and dereliction on a worrying scale, could be turning the corner.

So there's much to celebrate - which is why Prescott's Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) could afford to welcome a ground-breaking State of the Cities report last week, produced by a team led by Michael Parkinson, of Liverpool John Moores University.

It focuses on 58 English towns and cities, and the ODPM trumpets that they are recovering "after years of decline ... since 1997, a combination of sustained economic growth, rising public investment, and strong local leadership means that once again they are becoming successful places to live, work and enjoy". (Arguably, a network of urban development corporations, launched by the last Conservative government well before 1997, helped to launch that revival.)

The website of John Moores University put a slightly different spin on the Parkinson report: "England's cities have improved in recent years but still lag behind the top cities in Europe." Only London (ranked 23rd), Bristol (34th) and Leeds (43rd) made it into the league table of the top 50 European cities with the highest gross domestic product.

The good news is that the ODPM believes the impressive Parkinson report provides the foundation for a recalibration of urban policy - namely, devolving more powers to cities and surrounding conurbations, and giving them more financial autonomy. That means a substantial cultural shift, with Whitehall and ministers learning to let go after two decades in which power has increasingly been pulled to the centre.

David Miliband, the local government and communities minister, has been setting the tone with a series of city-region summits, at which council leaders have been invited to come forward with suggestions for new forms of conurbation governance. Some have seized the opportunity; others can't agree on a way forward. That's a pity, because it's time to take the government at its word, produce new structures for city regions - particularly over transport, planning and skills - and present them to Miliband and his team. Then it will be up to ministers to deliver the goods.

One clue will be the government's response to the mayor of London's call for more powers over areas such as skills. The ODPM appears to be up for more devolution. But what of the other departments?

· Peter Hetherington writes on regeneration and community affairs

He used to be, maybe still is the 'regional' regeneration editor or something to that effect. It's not that what he is saying about Liverpool is completely untrue, it's the slant I take exception to. For example, Leeds and Manchester have been transformed 'beyond recognition' but not Liverpool. Liverpool is still beset by decay and dereliction on a worrying scale. Manchester isn't. I don't know Leeds but I know Manchester and Liverpool quite well and I know that there is still plenty of decay and dereliction in Manchester and a comparison of Liverpool's skyline taken in 1996 and 2006 or an aerial shot of the Paradise Street area illustrates that decay and dereliction are not the only adjectives in town! Let's give him credit for conceding that Liverpool could be turning the corner!
 
#37 ·
^^ It's simply a matter of the fact that The Guardian has a large well-staffed Manchester offfice and no journalists in Liverpool. Rather as some of the more ignorant London journalists have been congratulating themselves themselves in the last few years because they have discovered that the north of England isn't a vast wasteland of abandoned mines and toxic waste-spewing rubber factories, it is an shocking indictment of the lack of professional competance and objectivity of Manchester-based journalists who appear to be labouring under similar misapprehensions about a city only 30 miles of where they work.

It boils down to an ingrained pro-Manchester/anti-Liverpool city rivalry bias. Always: Manchester's brilliant: Liverpool's shit, whatever is going on. There are Scousers who are prejudiced against Manchester, I know, but I don't know any who have well paid jobs on national newspapers.

That Hetherington is meant to be The Guardian's Regional Affairs correspondence and he is so ignorant and biassed that he can't get over an atavistic city rivalry is terrible reflection of his unprofessionalism and also an reminder of how ill-served Liverpool is by the Manchester media. It's like having Zagreb's local news covered by Belgrade.
 
#38 ·
The Guardians an awful paper.

Opinions will alter significantly when Paradise Street comes on stream, the arena hosts events, journalists are forced to visit for 2008, the Open Golf coming twice in a short space of time, hopefully we'll have a full on party conference (given the new Tory slant on cities could they be coaxed in?) and they'll see first hand the progress, feel the vibrancy and dispel their misgivings.

I know Manchester reasonably well and while it's advanced of Liverpool at this moment in time, it still has plenty to do and has areas of decay and rot to deal with, within spitting distance of the shiney new buildings, public spaces and shops of the downtown. But that's just cities.
 
#42 ·
Interesting point on prejudiced Mancunians in the media (cue 15 pages of spam), FHM Austrailia are trying to recover from a piece it recently did on the Hillsborough disaster in which pictures and distasteful comments littered an anti scouse article. Off the back of this circulation has dropped 15%, advertising incomes are down and a campaign by readers is put pressure on FHM Austrailia to withdraw the offending edition and do a reprint, reputedly costing them $1 million. The editor at the time has resigned and has so far failed land alternative employment.

The 'journalist' who produced the offending article - mancunian and 'ardent' Man United fan....

We do need some big hitters in the popular media to counter the current offering, will that happen without media bases though?
 
#43 ·
Toadboy said:
Interesting point on prejudiced Mancunians in the media (cue 15 pages of spam), FHM Austrailia are trying to recover from a piece it recently did on the Hillsborough disaster in which pictures and distasteful comments littered an anti scouse article. Off the back of this circulation has dropped 15%, advertising incomes are down and a campaign by readers is put pressure on FHM Austrailia to withdraw the offending edition and do a reprint, reputedly costing them $1 million. The editor at the time has resigned and has so far failed land alternative employment.

The 'journalist' who produced the offending article - mancunian and 'ardent' Man United fan....

We do need some big hitters in the popular media to counter the current offering, will that happen without media bases though?

Shows the power of LFC supporters around the world. :cheers:
 
#47 ·
Does anyone remember the thread about a month or two ago by B4mmy? I think it was about requests for articles for a new magazine about regeneration. It was based in Manchester and had one journalist who was based in Liverpool. Has the thread been deleted? Apropos of nothing, is it true that the magazine's chief backers were the NWDA?
 
#48 ·
yeh, had a look after i read the same thing and found this.

off google...funding from a variety of backers, including the North West Equity Fund and the North West Seed Fund...

more on the nwda website...

North West Equity Fund
The Agency also sponsored the establishment of the £35.5 million North West Equity Fund, managed by WM Enterprise Ltd from a base in Lymm. The fund can make investments up to £500,000 and aims to invest to produce a commercial return for its investors, including the DTi.
See www.nwef.co.uk

North West Seed Fund
This £4.5 million NWDA scheme has been created to help the region’s entrepreneurs take ideas from the drawing board to achieving their first sales. Initial investment of up to £100,000 will be made in Innovative early stage companies to help them develop their idea, prove the concept and exploit early sales. Further injections are possible up to a total investment of £350,000 per company.

The fund is available to selected companies from throughout the region and is being managed by Manchester-based Axiomlab Investment Management Limited. Visit www.nwsf.co.uk

so tax-payers money basically. all the more reason to demand it works for us.

can't find the original thread either. who deletes them?
 
#49 ·
Have just put this up on the downtown website in response to this
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/090206/northwest_regional_weekly_gets_funding_for_may_launch


Can we have a handout too?
'englandsnorthwest', such a popular concept, is to get it's own weekly publication. For 'professionals with a wider outlook than the local', it seemingly qualifies for a handout. We can't wait to find out what riveting news there is in Barrow, Manchester etc... actually, don't we get this already on the telly... and aren't we all fed up to the back teeth as it is all so irrelevant? We won't be buying it then.

There should always be a wider perspective than the purely local, but surely this itself should go beyond the completely false construct of the 'North West'. Markets do not work to the diktats of regional bean counters... isn't what's happening in Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Glasgow and Dublin is just as, if not actually more, important for Liverpool entrepreneurs to know?

A serious, and vital point is that we all know only too well how damaging 'regional media' has been to Liverpool's aspirations in these fields. We see nothing wrong with private investors making a speculative punt on a perceived gap in any market with their own money, but... should we be sanctioning public subsidy for a title that, presumably, aims to eat into the circulation of the city's business titles - and providing yet another publicly funded boost for a rival city's media sector at the same time?

We highlight the government's supposedly enlightened new appreciation of cities instead of regions below, but the 'NW regional project' is far from dead. Will be interesting to see who the regular 'regional stars' will be.

-------------------------------------------------

The obvious response (aside from the issue of yet more public funds boosting the manc media industrry) is there is nothing stopping Liverpool people from starting rival titles.... well why not?
There are enough skills and expertise just on this site (one reason why b4 approached it)
Looking at areas other than t'noowerthwest' would be a better financial proposition as the recent launch of the Liverpool Metro helps to prove. Remember that the original one based in Manchester was supposed to suffice for the whole 'region'... as this 'region' does not actually exist in any shape what so ever, it bombed... then the made the logical decision to infest the city with a Liverpool focussed one.
 
#50 ·
liverpolitan said:
Yawn, there are dozens of posts on the Warrington issue, don't start all that again. Anyway, what happened to your name? You were better as Accura_Preston (annoying kid) rather than Accura (annoying young adult). And what happened to your "Preston is my Paris" signature? And your depressing photographs of motorways? It's all change, eh?
That's just plain fucking ignorant. I don't remember Accura ever going out of his way to offend anyone.

What did he say wrong??

There's no reason for Warrington to be anywhere other than Warrington; that's all he's said. And he's right.
 
#51 ·
Intresting subject Sebo. Definately one I'd like to see tackled but how do you go about setting up a media title, the upfront capital must be enormous.

Or, me thinking out loud here, would a 'fanzine'/Private Eye styled publication be attractive to people. I'd rather comprise the gloss for the quality inside.

I agree that this forum alone has enough knowledge, articulation and passion to produce material, I'm sure the Manchester forum does as well, in fact both are talking about enough projects/issues/subjects to serve Liverpool and Manchester individually not as some North West manifestation.

The funding issue for this 'Enquirer' is a bug bear but that's not going to shift overnight, in fact a fully independant production could be quite a catalyst for change.
 
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