CAMPAIGNERS battling against the sell-off of the Meadowlands have vowed to fight on, despite Mayor Anderson’s decision to proceed with the sale.
They have applied to Government watchdog English Heritage for the Meadowlands to be given the same Grade I listing as the rest of Sefton Park (see panel below). In the meantime. a new e-petition has been launched and the campaigners are holding a public meeting next month.
The petition is calling for any planning application to be called in by the Government rather than just receive consent from the city council’s own Labour-dominated planning committee.
The meting is to take place at 7pm on Wednesday, November 17 in the Rathbone Room at the Greenbank Academy in Greenbank Lane, just a few hundred yards from the Meadowlands.
The city council has confirmed the proposed sale, even though a petition was submitted signed by 7,500 people with around 1,300 objections lodged against the sale as part of the legal consultation exercise.
Campaigner Paul Slater said: “The council (read as the Mayor) have ignored all of the valid representations they have received, and are bulldozing this through. However, we will not stand by, whilst they try to do this, and will fight them at every stage.
Mr Slater is critical of a “small” legal notice published in the Liverpool Post which referred to the proposed sale of “incidental space in Park Avenue, Liverpool 18”.
“It was misleading not to mention the relationship of the site, which is known as the Meadlowlands, to Sefton Park.”
He commented on the recent meeting of the council’s Regeneration Select Committee, at which the council report (into the objections) was discussed.
Mr Slater added: “The Mayor again dominated proceedings. There was virtually no input from the Labour members on this committee and certainly no scrutiny. As was expected, they voted through the sell off. The only Liberal Democrat on the committee, Pat Maloney, asked about the Mayor's supposed commitment to making Liverpool a greener place. Rather than answer the question, the Mayor launched into a party political rant.
“A number of objectors addressed the committee, with very valid points. These were all dismissed by the Mayor, who retorted that more people had voted for him, than had signed the petition. The Mayor refused to rule out the sale of any other green space.
“Our fight goes on and we will fight at every stage of all the processes, that will need to be gone through, before the Meadowlands are built upon.”
A new newsletter is in preparation, and will soon be mass produced, and widely delivered across Liverpool. We are also pushing a new e-petition, on the Government website, this is asking for any subsequent planning application to be called in, and to go to public inquiry. The petition can be signed here
Further information, and updates are also available on the Save Sefton Park Meadows Facebook page, and on the campaign website
Grade I listing
Campaigner John Middleton has applied to English Heritage for the Meadows to be granted Grade I listed status claiming that they form "the last remnants of a sanitary cordon of grand boulevards which connected the Ring of Parks enacted by the Liverpool City Council of 1862."
He says: "The Meadows are part of the 19th century plan for a Ring of Parks and they lead to the next link, Calderstones Park. The Queens Drive entrance to Sefton Park are a deliberately designed beautiful and sweepingly graceful entrance to the Park and should be given the same protection as the already listed, stone gate entrances at Sefton Park Rd (leading to Princes Park) and Aigburth Vale (leading to Otterspool).
"The distinctive grand design of the double row of lime trees that protect a broad walk used to go right around Queens Drive. This can be seen in photos from 1906 at Queen Drive in Walton, before the trees were felled to make way for the dual carriageway."
