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A granny in the front line against New Labour

07 April 2009

Charles Clover hails the courage of Elizabeth Pascoe, who has fought against the compulsory purchase of her Victorian home, and the laws that enable such state vandalism

There was no market failure in Edge Lane West. Of 131 empty homes five years ago, 127 were owned by social landlords. The properties were kept empty deliberately and tenants were paid up to leave. Only four empty properties were privately owned.

Ms Pascoe and her 70-odd supporters, who included Professor Anne Power, a member of the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, even designed their own alternative scheme, which involved refurbishing all those properties that weren’t in an advanced state of decay. At one stage, even the government’s own advisers, the Commission on Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), appeared to support them. It published a report saying that the highways department should ‘explore all the alternatives and put forward a convincing case for highway widening’. It said Ms Pascoe’s home and its neighbours were of ‘reasonable architectural merit’, the existing townscape ‘part of the entrance journey into Liverpool’. It concluded that the new housing designed for Bellway had ‘fundamental problems’ and was of ‘sub-standard quality’. Unfortunately it said this two days after the second public inquiry had closed.

Two weeks before Ms Pascoe went to the high court the second time, CABE reversed its view, on the basis of some new colour drawings of virtually the same scheme. The watchdog, toothless at best, had been muzzled — casting doubt on whether it serves any point at all. The council and the bureaucrats drove on, unwilling to lose face. The alternative scheme was found wanting by the judge simply because the local authority refused to fund it.

Elizabeth Pascoe cannot now afford to appeal. So there is only one consolation from this sorry tale. The story of Edge Lane has convinced many on the Conservative benches, such as Alistair Burt, who was at one time the Conservative housing spokesman, that ‘the planning system needs to be changed to reflect a proper balance between the value of good traditional property and the needs of a modern city’. It looks as if one day change will come. Unfortunately, for Ms Pascoe it will come too late.

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Ken Bishop

April 9th, 2009 9:34am Report this comment

Sadly, Liverpoool is demolishing thousands more houses like Pascoe's. Many are tiny, many are large, many are in horrible condition, many are not. But all have stood long enough to make it clear that they are well built. They are to be replaced by flats (less privacy, more neighbour problems), even though the newly built flats all along the waterfront are proving unsaleable. When we we ever learn?

BrianSJ

April 9th, 2009 10:59am Report this comment

It is such a shame we don't have a Conservative opposition.

Leah Owens

April 9th, 2009 11:48am Report this comment

This is not about 'renewal' other than the demolishing of history and remaking the area in Zanulabour's own image. When a country has no historical references then its history is, in effect, negated, forgotten and rewritten. Mao Tse Tung did this - albeit on a larger scale - during the Great Leap Forward, razing the beautiful buildings of old China to the ground. This vile Government is going about it in a more piecemeal way, but its purpose is the same.

Sidney Chambers

April 9th, 2009 3:30pm Report this comment

This is typical of modern Britains juggernaut authoritarian attitude to the man in the street. Free speach has gone, you can be fined for describing a road worker as a Pikey. The police are just Yobs in uniform who have been given too much power and are obviously drunk on it. So keen to club the public at the first oppotunity. The saddest thing I heard recently was from of a wartime Wellington bomber pilot who said "If I had known what this country would turn into I wouldn't have bothered". Mrs Pascoe deserves an award for services to the public, but no, the head of the banking system will get it instead. The system is corrupt.

LiverpoolTory

April 9th, 2009 3:58pm Report this comment

There are many houses in Liverpool which are in an absolutely appalling state. They are so dilapidated that it is impossible to view with any sense of admiration for the Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian architecture. This makes them slums of squalor and crime. Ultimately some housing should be knocked down in Liverpool to make way for new flats. These will be expensive with less living space but thats what you get with a rising population. Hopefully, it will get people living back in the city again and offset the inexcusable urban sprawl which is destroying our countryside.

jon livesey

April 10th, 2009 12:39am Report this comment

To me, the issue is wider than homes. The fact is that we have inherited laws that were written to be sweeping in their scope because that was safe in an age when the Civil Service was aware of the proper limits to the exercise of power, and the proper relationship of the Civil Service to the citizen.

Today we have a civil Service that exemplifies the arrogance of ignorance, and which tends towards the exercise of arbitrary powers simply to keep those powers in existence.

Today's Civil Service may not be very bright, have very much self-control, or understand its basic mission, but it does understand that powers must be used, otherwise they can decay away.

Expect to see yet more exercise of arbitrary powers in wider areas by Civil Servants and their legal representatives who are simply interested in keeping those powers in existence.

Tom Norton

April 10th, 2009 10:32pm Report this comment

Zanulabour disaster area - again.

Forlornehope

April 11th, 2009 10:47am Report this comment

Interestingly, the same problem exists in the land of the free, but for a different reason. In the USA you can have your house taken "for the public good". This has been interpreted by t he courts as any economic development. So if someone wants to build a supermarket you lose your house. It happens and you have no comeback.

Gervas Douglas

April 11th, 2009 11:06pm Report this comment

Don't expect the likes of David Cameron to do anything about these glaring injustices. There is no real constitutional opposition at present, just a bunch of opportunists hoping to grab the trappinhs of office by default.

Archie

April 12th, 2009 8:11am Report this comment

Sidney Chambers: My parents had a beautiful and historic piece of their property in the Midlands compulsorily purchased for a road widening scheme to provide access to a "redevelopment" by a friend of a councillor. No surprise then my father and an uncle, who both fought in WWII, are now staunch BNP members for exactly the reasons in your article.

Peter Kemp

April 12th, 2009 10:55am Report this comment

As a foreigner and regular visitor to your country I am not surprised by these actions.They are simply designed
to replace old traditional England with something that will accommodate the continuous
stream of old empire hopefuls that add very little to your economy yet continually want to change your culture and way of life.Take back England!!

Cisco

April 13th, 2009 2:20pm Report this comment

The really sad thing is, the road in question, Edge Lane, does not need widening. Granted, the area does need sprucing up, but this is more to do with the spitefulness of a landowner who is letting large areas of Edge Lane (including a fair sized retail park) fall into decay because the local council wont let him have his own way with redevelopment. The council aren't falling over themselves to compulsorily purchase any of his acres of property.

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