Below is a recent article written in the Liverpool Echo? This newspaper delivers about 136,000 copies a day around the region of Merseyside. Merseyside has a population of 1.5 million people. Interjected and highlighted are my critical comments on the content of the article

Mike Lane

City for winners
Jul 11 2002

By Joe Riley, Liverpool Echo

THE link between a spruced up Liverpool and its people has been hailed as unique - and a trump card for being European Capital of Culture.The city's make-over chief claims it is a winning formula. £2bn of development will take place in Liverpool over the next 10 years, (where will this £2bn come From?) creating 25,000 new jobs

(This figure is highly questionable and most of these jobs will be low paid) by 2015.That will take the core city workforce to more than 100,000, with millions extra being earned for the regional economy.

(Is this figure a reality or a figment of senior Liverpool City Council officer’s imagination?).

Charlie Parker, 41, the city's executive director for regeneration, said: "I challenge any other city in the UK to have engaged with its people in the way Liverpool has done in putting together a vision for the future and preparing the European bid.

(Mr Parker’s insertion that the council has engaged with the 474,000 people of Liverpool is an absolute fallacy. If you go to these major regeneration initives meetings you soon realise that participation by members of communities is practically none existent. For instance Liverpool Vision has only 70 to 120 people turning up at it’s community participation meetings and other major regeneration initives, such as the Kensington New Deal for Communities, which covers a population of over 14,000 people has only 5 to 15 people turning up at each of its 5 Citizens Panels. How can these figures be conducive with strong community participation when one takes into account the fact that 474,000 people live in Liverpool).

"This is not some showy sprint, but rather a marathon to make sure things go all the way."Mr Parker headed the Speke-Garston Partnership, the city's flagship regeneration scheme from 1995 to 1999, and prior to that led Manchester's planning team.

(Despite all of the favourable spin put out by this regeneration partnership, the Liverpool city Council’s regeneration department and the Liverpool’s media, the fact is that if one visits the Speke-Garston areas and talks to the residents one soon realises that nothing much has changed in relation to the way these residents live. The people who live in these communities will dismiss as untrue the claims that thousands of jobs have been created).

He is in no doubt about the benefits of linking building and street improvements directly to culture and jobs.Charlie Parker says: "Capital of Culture gives us a flag to wave and a goal to be a truly modern international city. Capital of Culture judges will need to know when they visit Liverpool next Friday that giving the city the European title in 2008 would provide long-term social and economic benefits.

(The Capital of Culture bid is yet again another diversion. Take a look at the PnP web site  http://www.peoplenotprofit.co.uk/news1.htm and see what they think about the so-called Capital of Culture bid).

"Now, having been given the spur, we are proving that we can come up with the quality by revitalising and recovering the city. "But it is not just about buildings and heritage. You also have to engage with the people and Liverpool has done that in a unique way."

(As has already been explained healthy community engagement and a bottom up approach is just a falasey that has been created by the council and hyped up by the media. What we have here is a senior council regeneration officer holding just a hand full of people up as the community when in reality most people in Liverpool have not got a clue as to what is going on pertaining to the issue of regeneration. For more information about the issue of community participation and the lengths a regeneration agency will go to exclude people go to web page:  http://www.whistleblower.nstemp.com/catalog.html ).

Mr Parker said that although Liverpool may have once lagged behind in UK regeneration policy, the situation may now be turned to the city's advantage.He said: "Because we started a little later than places like Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle, we can learn from the mistakes of others and actually leapfrog over them."Liverpool's regeneration is being achieved on three main fronts.Apart from the city centre itself - new shops, offices and housing and reclaiming many of the lost street networks of old - there are improvements to the so-called "four gateways" to the city, as well as concentrated future plans to improve the north of the city in Vauxhall, Anfield and Kirkdale.

(Much has been said by the people who live in these three run down communities and much has been promised to them by the Liverpool City Council, but if you visit the Vauxhall, Anfield and Kirkdale areas you will soon realise that none of these promises have become a reality. Many people think that these poor run down areas will be used to rehouse poor people who will be socially cleansed from areas, which are due for massive regeneration and demolition, such as the Kensington New Deal area. This New Deal for Communities area already has £62m from central government with much more to follow and this money can be used to draw down European Objective One funding. This area is close to the city centre and the main gateway into the city centre the M6-M62 runs onto and right through the centre of this community. Massive demolition and social cleansing are being planned for this area. This area will eventually become a prime area for private homes for sale to yuppie suburbanites).

The gateway projects are in Speke-Garston; along the M62-Kensington link; in Alt Valley around Fazakerley, Gillmoss and Norris Green, and along the Atlantic Highway route from Seaforth, parallel with the dock estate.There is also massive and ongoing improvement planned to the city centre.

(£500m Objective One money that was originally meant to go into 37 poor areas of Merseyside was in effect taken and put into the city centre).

This includes the Kings Dock Arena site (£300m); the "fourth grace" building for the Pier Head (about £100m); the Paradise Street Bus Station/Bluecoat Triangle redevelopment (£700m of private funding); the refurbishment and expansion of the museums and Walker art gallery (£40m), as well as improvements to the Empire theatre (£11m); St George's Hall (£15m) and the new art technology centre for video art in Duke Street.

(A bonanza for the rich property developers in Liverpool. Even the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Developments is now in Liverpool trying to get its hands onto the European funding).

In addition to these and other projects, £100m has been set aside to improve streets, provide public squares and revive many inner-city streets obliterated by building developments during the 1960s, 70s and 80s.Apart from the obvious benefits to residents and visitors, there is one glorious and unequalled legacy of the work, which the Capital of Culture judges cannot ignore.European Objective One funding, a scheme to assist areas of acknowledged social deprivation, has played a significant part in the redesigning and revival of Liverpool.

(As has already been mentioned this money was supposed to have gone to 37 poor areas known as Pathway Partnerships)

.Should the city be chosen to be European Capital of Culture, then it would be the first such city to have arisen from the direct benefits of this particular European fund.What better proof could there be of money well spent, or of a legacy already primed from the heart of Europe to further the European ideal?

(The above final assertion is an insult to the poor and socially excluded people of Liverpool and Merseyside and is yet again another example of the misinformation constantly reported by the Liverpool Echo. This newspaper is totally incapable of indulging in critical dialogue, especially when it comes to the issue of regeneration. It is quite obvious, even to the casual observer, that Liverpool’s media has sunk to an all time low in its reportage of the way in which regeneration initives and administrators are operating). ____________________________