Following all the kerfuffle about houses in the North being knocked down, claims and counter claims that they’re just horrible two up two downs and the like, a reporter decided to actually go and look at them.
Behind Prescot Road is Newsham Park, a handsome Grade II listed park
with a bandstand. Facing it is Prescot Drive, its huge derelict villas
with daylight showing through the rafters, which the council says it
did not have enough money to keep in good repair.
……
This makes little sense since, even in a city which
has lost a quarter of its population since the war, you might expect
large villas on a park to have value.
The council would not sell them and they are being allowed to fall down – even though they are in a conservation area.
It
is not difficult to get the impression that what is going on here is
not "market failure" but a failure caused by social engineering.
Areas shaded yellow on the map – for more intervention – exist all over Merseyside, some with spectacular houses.
A
startling example is Hertford Road, Bootle, a street of five- bedroomed
red brick villas built in 1893, one of a number of streets named after
Oxford Colleges which run down to the walled-up docks.
Hertford
Road is five minutes walk to Marks & Spencer in Bootle town centre
and near the Metro station. At the end of the road is a park and a
statue of George V stands on a plinth looking down the street,
completing an attractive townscape.
All this is scheduled to come down…..
Obviously, just the sort of slums that have to be demolished.
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