ROUND two, or is it three, of the Battle of Sefton Park Meadows continued to be played out today with the question, is there a moratorium until after an independent review into the city’s green spaces?

The Meadows scheme is not on hold, storms the council. 

Putting the scheme on hold was discussed this week, insists Green councillor Tom Crone.

An even bigger questions now emerges – the council says the Meadows is included in the independent review (which won’t even report back until next summer), but progress on the scheme there will continue in the meanwhile …. So what is the purpose of the review?

Earlier this week the battle over the Meadows was played out in national newspapers, and in international media, following the high profile spat between Mayor Anderson and Sex And The City star Kim Cattrall.

Fast forward to Tuesday night when the council’s Regeneration, Housing and Sustainability Select Committee held a meeting at the Town Hall to discuss proposals for the involvement of city councillors and the wider community in the development of the Liverpool Local Plan.

At the city council meeting a week earlier Mayor Anderson announced the setting up of an independently chaired committee to review potential development sites across Liverpool.

Green Councillor Tom Crone, a member of the select committee, fired at question at Regeneration Director Nick Kavanagh at this Tuesday’s meeting.

Cllr Crone told Liverpool Confidential: “The first question I asked (Nick Kavanagh) was while there is a review going on should there be a moratorium on the development of sites included in the review. Nick Kavanagh’s response seemed to confirm that high profile schemes should be on hold while the review takes place.

“I certainly  took from his response that he agreed with my statement that there should be no progress on developments during the review. To me it seemed a most logical response. If there was to be no cessation of projects developing, what would be the point or purpose of a review. It would, in my opinion, undermine the task of the independent review.

“John Davies (from the Sefton Park Meadows Campaign) was at the meeting and he contacted me to ask if I had heard what he had heard, that green space developments should be put on hold. That helped confirm to me I was correct in my understanding of what had been said at the meeting.”

John Davies told Liverpool Confidential he also understood the exchange between Cllr Crone and Nick Kavanagh to mean the Meadows development would be put on hold.

Liberal Steve Radford, who was also at the meeting, insists no such moratorium was promised, adding “Nick Kavanagh went on to point out that nobody could halt a planning application being submitted for any site in the city.”

Buoyed by reports from the meeting from Cllr Crone and John Davies, Ken Aspinall, chair of Save Sefton Park Meadows Campaign Group welcomed the development, hailing it as a partial victory in the battle to save the Meadows.

He told Liverpool Confidential: “I thought it was too good to be true, but the message was clear: the Meadows development was on hold.”

Radio Merseyside and Liverpool Confidential reported what was an interesting development in the story, especially in the wake of Kim Cattrall’s timely intervention.

Mayor Anderson’s official spokesman then entered the fray, with a comment: “While Sefton Park Meadows and Walton Hall Park will be included in the green spaces review, it is not correct that there is a moratorium on progress on the current schemes, and this is not what was stated at the select committee meeting.”

The spokesman added that the Mayor will be announcing the details and “terms and conditions” of the independent review, most likely next week. The review will look at green spaces in the city on a ward by ward, case by case basis.

Redrow, the development company owned by Liverpool born multi-millionaire Steve Morgan, has already indicated that, subject to planning permission, it hopes to start development of the Meadows next spring – months before the review reports back.

Cllr Crone, in response, says: “I stand by what I have said, because it would defy logic to continue to progress high profile schemes such as the Meadows until the independent review reports back to the council next summer.”