We Missed You!
Apologies to all regular downtowners for the slow pace of stories from the team this month -it's not that we don't care! Big changes coming to the site soon.

We Told You So! Again
News that the Heritage Lottery Fund has declined funding for the new Museum of Liverpool on the Pier Head, and witnessing some of the gleeful reaction from 'locals', should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following:

a) the pattern of regional funding from Government
b) the continuing impact of World Heritage Site status.


Stagnant Water?

England's core cities such as Liverpool need to find ways out of the cap-in-hand mentality to London - or perhaps just use the ballot box!

Good news then that at last, Peel and Liverpool City Council have agreed to reach a deal on the new cruise liner terminal which will now start on site this April.

King Edward Tower
New pictures have been released by architects DTR:UK of this truly stunning new building at the north end of Prince's Dock.

New Year Wishes
With everyone settling back into work we thought we would ask you all what you would like to see for downtown in the coming year... our main selection would be:

That Central Station, Chieftain and Brunswick Quay [remember them?!] all go ahead, with the blessings of the planning committee and an understanding of the added-value such schemes bring to the city.

Be rid of the World Heritage Status, the insufferable plethora of planning
codes that are crafted to consolidate it (anti-tall building policy, townscape characterisations etc) as well as the parasitic and deluded community that has formed around and fed off it, much to downtown's cost.

A suitable and sorely needed buildings conservation programme to ensure
that the most important aspects of downtown's heritage is actually
saved... rather than still falling down around our ears as the heritage aesthetes come up with ever sillier ideas (see above).

A realisation that we have a downtown, not a roofless mall to 'compete with' the Trafford Centre etc. The diversity of offer within the metropolitan experience attracts retail folk and ensures they stay!

An enterprise priority aimed at building up the potential of downtown's business...so that would include a positive resolution of the situation with Quiggins and those who aspire to start their enterprise downtown...the LOGICAL place for 95% of business ideas to be!

A realisation (backed up by appropriate policy intention) of the value of a high residential community. A stated aim to treble the downtown population that would help to counter and clear out of the system some truly odd statements toward the end of last year about there being 'too many flats' etc etc . All we need is to move onto the next level and next generation of downtowners .. ie: families.

A further breaking down of the mentality and the infrastructure that manifests in the remnants of the 1960s' Shankland Plan. Not one piece of which has any value what-so-ever!

Diversify, intensify and celebrate
downtown.

Of course, we would love to see everybody taking part and putting on stuff for June's (11th-18th) Downtown Week. More people, more business - a more vibrant downtown to grow!

Mass, drunken murder did not happen
No, you wouldn't have seen that headline in any of our tabloid media - does not make good copy, but that is what happened downtown... in super-sophisticated Liverpool at least. Feedback from downtowners about how the holiday period played out has been encouraging... trade up, visitors up, more shoppers, more revellers - good times had by all. Perhaps the freeing-up of licencing will indeed break the debauched habits that have developed over the last decade... something had to give.

Bad Buildings
This time, not just in Liverpool but across the UK; check out www.beyondarchitecture.co.uk
to cast your vote on the good - as well as the bad and the ugly.

If John says it's good then it MUST be bad!
the long proposed canal link across downtown's pierhead has received planning permission, and according to this BBC web-report, work has just started. We will have to sniff this one out as if they are indeed on site then it is the first that we have heared of it! John 'Northern Way, NWDA, New Heartlands' Prescott says it is a wonderful scheme... we leave you with the above list to decide his judgement on these matters for yourselves!

Innovative solutions to a perennial downtown problem
Much has been said about whether downtowners would want to own cars etc.. but nobody thought to ask those who may have the answer.. downtown residents.

Just as you find in Europe and the States, no matter how vibrant and compact your city is, you still want the car... you just don't need it any longer to do even the simplest and most mundane tasks as you do in the 'burbs.

A car stacking system being built to serve the new residents of the splendidly restored Albany apartments is something that we should see much more of downtown!

Still going strong
Though they have some pressing problems to overcome in 2006, uber-hip 3345 still keep the creative juices flowing. This Friday 6th Jan they have, for a one off, the return of DJ Festus playing at 3345 this Friday, followed
by the legendary Andy Carroll this Saturday 7th Jan.

Stating the bleedin' obvious
Liverpool Vision has recently produced a report showing how central the downtown economy is to metropolitan well-being. Let's now hope that some who see determined to style this dynamic flow will now be sideline, as they only give bad advice. Well done to the team at LV who do some great stuff in the face of some mediocre talents. Remind yourselves however, just how bad some of this advice has been by downloading a report from last year - an unremitting dirge of brown brick low-slung boxes that they attempt to justify and indeed celebrate!

Putting the willies up downtowners
A new series of walks for downtown have been created that intend to show people around the scariest and most haunted downtown places [and no, not Millennium House...] Sounds spookily delicious. Contact Alexandra Stone on 0151 726 8454.

I'll see you in the new pocket park
Downtown recently got two new pocket parks. These are excellent short-term solutions to unsightly derelict downtown sites, and with some thinking some could become long-term assets for downtowners.

Ice Station Zebra

Paradise Street Bus Station

Much has been written in the local press about the stunning new bus station on Paradise Street. It is a great building - trust us - but you'll have to wait a year or two until the whole Liverpool One development is finished to see how it fits in place. Until then why not join the other 100 000 people who have visited the Lord Street exhibition centre and see how the area will look?