The Regeneration Game!

Take a look at the link to the film and see how angry the community members are who appear in it. The service providers come across as totally cosha, but in reality they are double speaking. The two Lib Dem councillors are supporting the service providers even though these same two councillors are supporting homeowners who are refusing to accept the CPO’s. This film has been carefully stage managed by the people at John Moors University Digital faculty, but still the voice of anger can be heard from the audience.

Are criminals involved in the regeneration of Liverpool and Merseyside?

Are local government agencies and service providers “indirectly” creating an environment, which empowers local organised criminals and thus gives them the ability to silence community activists who speak out against the way regeneration agencies and various service providers are behaving within poor run down communities which have been earmarked for regeneration and demolition? Are they also being used to discourage homeowners who have refused to accept the Compulsory Purchase Orders, which have been issued to demolish their homes in the Edge Hill area and in other demolition areas throughout Merseyside? If these homeowners succeed it could cost rich construction companies millions of pounds in lost profit and slow the Edge Lane road-widening and gentrification project. Edge lane is the main road that all the traffic will be coming down form the M62 so it is very important to the capital of culture in 2008.

Bellow are links to film and articles in the local newspaper the Liverpool Echo, which will give some authenticity to what is stated above.

Liverpool’s £62m New Deal for Communities initiative, which covers a large part of the Edge Hill and Kensington areas of Liverpool. Presently these areas are experiencing a massive crime wave.

Below is a link to the guardian newspaper. Even though this article is a year old things have not improved in many of the 39 NDC areas. In fact things have got worse considerably:

 http://society.guardian.co.uk/regeneration/story/0,7940,1191065,00.html

The people who run the city:

Who’s really behind the running of Liverpool? Below is a link to a list of most of the people who are responsible for running the City of Liverpool. Some senior officers of the city council, such as the £110,000 per year regeneration senior officer Charlie Parker, are not on the list

These are the people and clergy who run the city at local government level. The main objective of these people is to path the way for rich property developers and big business to come into Liverpool and Merseyside and impose their agendas onto the city and onto our communities.

There are a couple of interesting thing to note when observing this list. One particular thing took my notice. The Government’s Office for Merseyside (because of Liverpool’s turbulent political past central government has decided to place itself in the city in Cunard Buildings at the Pier Head) senior civil servant who is connected with the Kensington New Deal initiative is a lady called Liz Gill. Her husband Jim Gill just happens to be the Chief Executive of Liverpool Vision. Isn’t that a conflict of interests?

 http://www.liverpoolvision.co.uk/about/team.asp

The North West Development Agency, English Partnerships and the Liverpool City Council fund Liverpool Vision. The staff at Vision are probably under similar terms of employment as city council staff, which would means Jim Gill could earn somewhere in the region of £110,000 per year.

Many of the people who are behind what goes on in Liverpool:

The “Liverpool Partnership Group. This group of elitists have a large say in what goes on in the City of Liverpool and also have a large say in what in what happens right across the whole region of Merseyside:

 http://www.liverpoolfirst.org/Doc/Mins%20LFB%20LPG%20Mtg%204-11-03.doc

Crime wave in the Pathfinder communities:

Merseyside is one of the nine New Heartland’s pathfinder areas chosen by central government. All of the areas in Merseyside which have been chosen under the New Heartland’s initiative for mass demolition are at present experiencing a massive crime wave. The Liverpool Echo is constantly reporting crimes of arson and aggravated burglary within the areas, which have been, chosen for mass demolition.

The chief executive of the Kensington New Deal for communities Lynn Spencer and the chief executive of the registered social landlord Community 7 (yet another subsidiary of the massive unaccountable Riverside Group) recently tried to give the impression at a meeting held at the Liverpool Digital centre (a large media building which belongs to Liverpool John Moor’s University) that crime had drastically declined in the area and everything was successfully going to plan.

This meeting was filmed and the (as far as can be ascertained) unedited film can be viewed at:

 http://www.icdc.org.uk/news.aspx?newsID=699

Incidentally, it was revealed at the Edge Lane public enquire where tenants and homeowners are trying to stop the above agencies from demolishing their houses that the Liverpool city council transferred some 300 council houses over to C7: The storey about this stock transfer can be viewed on Liverpool Echo link:

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=13707579%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html#story_continue

Liz Pasco who is the main protagonist fighting against demolition told me that Ian Hassall who works for the private sector Liverpool Land Development agency and was one of the witnesses at the public inquiry told her that shortly after the Liverpool City Council had transferred the council house stock over to C7 it came to pass that somewhere in the region of 100 of the ex council properties were intermingled amongst houses in areas of the New Deal zone which had been designated for demolition so the council, with the help of other public bodies bought the houses back off C7 for the sum of £5m. If you speak with the Liverpool Land Development agency about this issue they wrap the issue up in an argument that can only be understood by chartered accountant or a professor in economics.

Even the former government whip and careerist Blairite MP Jane Kennedy spoke out at the same Edge Lane public inquiry and in a national newspaper about the underhanded behaviour of the agencies involved in the regeneration of Liverpool’s Kensington and Edge Hill areas she said in the Telegraph:

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/17/ndemo17.xml

Crime wave in New Deal area:

The cold-blooded shooting of two staff at the Devonshire Hotel. The Devonshire Hotel sits right in the centre of the designated £62m New Deal for Communities area. The Devonshire Hotel is constantly used by the New Deal administrators and the City Council for public meeting such as forum meeting. This consistent crime is happening on a weekly scale yet the New Deal administrators are always trying to portray the image that there is practically no crime in the area. The people who committed this crime are probably local criminals.

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=16332272%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

These young criminals are just five of the many vicious criminals and drug pushers that live in the £62m New Deal for Communities Edge Hill area. Many of these criminals are Community 7 tenants:

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=16259626%26method=full%26siteid=50061%26headline=we%2dwill%2dcatch%2dgangs-name_page.html

Cats horrifically killed:

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=15322025%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

Edge Hill train station:

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=14356044%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

Gun crime:

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=12461071%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

Chatsworth Drive right on the fringe of the New Deal area:

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=13588579%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

Wavertree is just across the road from Edge Hill:

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=14997682%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

The Prescot Road car wash is right on the fringe of the New Deal for Communities area:
 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=14597397%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html
Petrol bombings:

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=15419003%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

Crimes not reported or not available on Liverpool Echo web site:

· Elizabeth Pasco. Aggravated burglary. Elizabeth Pasco is an ardent campaigner against the Kensington Regeneration and all the other agencies that work with KNDC, such as: The New Heartlands team, the North West Regional Development agency and the Liverpool Land Development agency. Elizabeth Pasco along with 86 other homeowners, who have been told that their homes are going to be demolished, have decided not to except their CPO’s and are now on a war footing with the Liverpool City Council and the above agencies. Elizabeth has had her front door battered down at 4 am in the morning. The criminals held her at knifepoint and stole practically nothing. Elizabeth has also had her car smashed to pieces on at least four occasions. Elizabeth even caught the criminals attacking her car on camera and the local police lost the video.

Links to just three of many articles in the Liverpool Echo about housing activist Elizabeth Pasco who runs BEVEL:

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=16245457%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=16137581%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

 http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_objectid=15701762%26method=full%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

· Community member and friend of Elizabeth P, Omar, had his car turned upside down outside his house in broad daylight. The police came and did nothing.

· Mike Lane Ardent community activist and campaigner against the NDC initiative, the city council, Riverside Housing and Community 7 was nearly kidnapped and had his car petrol bombed outside his flat. This community activist and campaigner against social injustice believes that local criminals whose families or relatives are involved within the regeneration process were responsible for this attack.

· Six Chinese students held at knifepoint in their student accommodation

· Community 7 board member had her car petrol bombed outside her house.

If the police where to give information on all the crime that is taking place in and around the New Deal area it would be staggering. Many people believe that the police are deliberately standing off and letting this crime wave take place. Some residents even believe that all of the service providers mentioned above are indirectly involved with local criminals. This is being allowed to happen so as to further discourage demolition homeowners who are refusing to accept their CPO’s. Most of the CCTV cameras, which have been installed in these areas, are broken and have been broken for months.

In fact if you take a closer look at all the four areas, Anfield, Bootle Dingle and Kensington Edge Hill, which have been chosen by the New Heartland team you will observe that a crime wave exists in all of them.