ARCHIVE: November 2004

Chamber developing teeth?
News that Liverpool Chamber of Commerce is becoming 'more political (with a small p)' can only be good news for downtown business.

A constant assertion of ours is that a healthy city must have an EFFECTIVE Chamber of Commerce at its heart; everything else is just so much waffle!
Good luck to Peter Ralphs.

ps: for evidence of how business can REALLY stamp its authority in a city, just look to the Continent!


Lille: Chamber of Commerce
[click to enlarge]

Late night shopping offers opportunities
Last week saw the first Christmas period late night shopping - very successful.

Also the excellent Continental market will be on Lord St for 3 days, 17th, 18th and 19th December

With Merseytravel offering travel deals of 50p return on Thursdays and Sundays over this period and visitor and cultural groups opening late too there is a huge opportunity created for firms to offer something different and innovative to get more footfall in - you never know - if you try something it may well lead to new customers all year round!

What will you be doing to get more folks downtown into your business?

Did nobody see the irony in this?
TV Moguls from around Europe visited Liverpool at the weekend (pity there were no TV station CEO's from the Bay Area to accompany them), or indeed, the arrogance in this:and you thought a huge rejection of the regionalisation project would kill it off?

Just one more reason to sign up for this
www.merseysideassembly.org.uk or this
www.ideopolis.info

to make sure that we are rid of this agenda:
Yes4northwest


Massive injection for Downtown Library
Liverpool Central Library is one of the busiest in the UK with over 600k visitors per year. Over £30m has just been earmarked for a major resource in the Walker Library - excellent stuff..

PSDA Open For Business
The new Paradise Project centre opened its doors in Lord Street this week. And what smart doors it has too - we would encourage all downtowners to check out Grosvenor's centre which really does look fantastic. Well done to the team.


Paradise Project Visitor Centre, Lord Street

For visitors new to this site or to anyone down the M62, PSDA is a £750m mixed-use extension to the city centre. Check out the official site which we will place a permanent link to on this page now that work is on-site to keep you abreast of downtown changes.

Road to Nowhere?
Why however does the remodelled Paradise Street bury itself in John Lewis's new Dept store? Is this good urbanism?


New Paradise St looking North

Whilst the detail of the PSDA masterplan is still emerging, and we have been a vocal supporter of the scheme since its inception, can we please ensure that we are building a city - not a mall..

Centre Point
Downtown visitors should also make a beeline for Wood Street and check out another recently opened visitor centre:


Biennial Centre

Downtowners will remember CUBE being based in this Tea Factory unit, Biennial have now stepped in with a cool new interior and loads of downtown info to pick up.


Latte on the Waterfront
Coffee Union, now open on Princes Dock, will afford spectacular metropolitan and maritime vistas when the current wave of development [1, 2] is complete,


Prince's Dock - Going UP

why not take a walk down there this week?

Barking Mad?
News that the fantastic £15million eco-residential complex proposed for Dingle has been drastically reduced as they where ‘too tall’ (again!) and had all of the commercial stripped out - why?

Architect David Marks of MBA will be in Liverpool next Monday, downtowners are invited to turn up and give his scheme some support.

Hope St Hotel
Check out this interesting architectural review of the Hotel, and of Liverpool, from the Danish site arcspace.com

Biennial going great



The Liverpool Biennial is providing an ongoing boon to downtown, with visitor numbers going through the roof. Excellent stuff this year.

Two of our favourites that we recommend are Yuan Goang-Ming's work that perfectly illustrates our central point about downtown – its exclusively about people! Also

Martha Rosla's 'Delving and Driving' trip across the city! Get along and see something - all ends 29th November.


New Life From Old

Tithebarn Street

An interesting conversion of a former office block into apartments is taking shape in Tithebarn Street. Might not cladding such as this be a better way of dealing with' b-list' (or x-list!) buildings than knocking them down?

Byrom Street -All Change

The intersection between Hunter and Byrom St (above) is currently being remodelled so watch out for long delays if you're travelling in from North of the city.

News that JMU's Byrom Street campus building is to have some major alterations to its facade to extend the building -keep an eye out for this.

Looks likely that Dale Street's flyover (also above) will not be dropped! What do downtowners think?

Downtown is not an island
Might we have avoided last month's public sector catfight over line 2 of the proposed tram system
that so nearly killed it off if if downtown entrepreneurs had been invited to help shape transport policy from the beginning?
see Zwire.com

Liverpool Chamber of Commerce has a Transport Group, .but were they asked to partake? - and by that we don't mean given a questionaire!!


Autumn in the City


St John's Gardens in autumn

Why not head downtown and have your lunch in one of our city gardens for a change?

How do you do it?
Downtown entrepreneur, Paul Flannigan recently called for public sector contracts to be made easier for Liverpool firms to bid for.

We fully back this call. We too have personal experience of the barriers that are put in the way of firms with an ‘L’ postcode. This helpful article on SME's and public sector procurement in The Sunday Times is a start.

We think a ‘how to’ by the Liverpool Echo or City Council should be made available, but in the meantime, contact these 3 to see if they can help:

www.liverpoolchamber.org.uk
www.gme.org.uk
www.liverpoolbusinesscentre.co.uk



Alsop Sees Red
As well as being a major factor in the collapse of Alsop Architects -the practice of Will Alsop which went into receivership this week - the collapse of the 4th Grace in Liverpool has had wider implications.


Will Alsop's Cloud at Mann Island

Will Alsop having made 25 people redundant and having lost Project Architect Christopher Egret - is calling for Liverpool City Council's CEO to resign.

In a conversation with the Liverpool Daily Post, Alsop suggested the city had 'a weak planning department under the control of David Henshaw who should go'

Can we please prove Alsop wrong by building a 21st century city we can be proud of? When will Liverpool ever win again a prize for international architecture?

[Note: current poll on Liverpool Echo website:
Is Liverpool presenting the right image of itself?
77% say NO]


Derby Square Changes
An exhibition explaining the public realm changes to Castle Street and Derby Square will be held from 2-5 November next week. Gladstone Room at Liverpool Town Hall more info


The Truth is Out There
Google can't lie (it's a piece of maths) so Liverpudlians will really enjoy this link - putting pay to any delusions of grandeur from our neighbours 'down't Mill'.
Google Zeitgeist July 2004


NE Say NO
The news that the North East gave a resounding NO in their referendum for a regional assembly is excellent for those of us around the country who appreciate the huge potential that lies in our cities.

Such an overwhelming rejection, 6-1, ironically in an area that could probably make a regional assembly work best, highlights the fundamental flaws in the Government's proposals for devolution through a regional construct.

These flaws where obvious, they where seen and roundly rejected as an unworkable imposition.

The vote should now be the catalyst for the development of other methods of devolution. Any practical focus has to be based on strong city regions. Issues, as we have stated previously, such as elected mayors and composition can come later - we have to get the principle agreed, understood and accepted first! Roll on, our mighty metropolis.


Pray for a downtown TV station
Everone knows that downtown Liverpool has two mighty cathedrals, BUT, we don’t have a single television station, so if you want to be part of ITV’s recording of ‘My favourite hymns’ at the Anglican from 22nd November you will have to call Manchester-835-6420 for details - Shame!

STOP PRESS
Mersey TV has announced a joint partnership with Liverpool City Council for a digital TV station. But the content? By Public Sector providers! Jesus! Can someone else in the marketplace please provide an alternative?!

Touch of Irish internationalism is coming downtown
We don't generally report on new business opening downtown, there are just too many helping our renaissance, but we thought this one deserves a mention as it reminds us that entrepreneurs drive investment in the main.

Eddie Rockets, the top Irish owned chain of 1950's American themed diners, is launching its first ever UK diner in Bold Street mid November 2004.

Top 'O' the Mornin! And welcome downtown!

Paradise Street In Progress

Before

Paradise St nth Nov 2004

After!

Park Lane Nov 2004

Let's hope PSDA delivers a city which doesn't repeat the mistakes of the (see above) past.

So Long



Church Street traders will be history from April 1 2005 as they lose the option of a judicial review against the City Council at the High Court.

There has always been a particular problem with the traders on Church St but we must remember that street trading is an essential part of economic growth. Liverpool cannot forgo this essential route for business development.

Downtown booster on his way
Paul Rice our city centre supremo is leaving to take up a new post. We will miss Paul. His appreciation of downtown as well as his intension to maximise its potential was a breath of fresh air when he arrived. Good work done – let’s hope his successor is as dedicated to the Downtown cause!
Good Luck Paul

Mersey Docks Rocking
News that a £7.2 million project to upgrade Alexandra and Langton Docks for Mersey Docks and Harbour Company has been put to tender.

City Lofts Snapped Up
Liverpudlians have been overstepping the investors in the rush to buy Conran's new high-rises currently on-site in the Prince's Dock.
What does this tell us about the need for more, not less, housing provision in the city? Are any developers looking at the family market?
Must anyone who is a parent and first time buyer be forced to live in the burbs of Wirral?!!

Atop a Cotswolds hill
It seems that a whole series of neighbourhood characterisations are taking place…but with the intention of imposing the ‘character’ that our neighbourhoods should be reconstructed as! Downtown is the big dynamic and changing heart of the city. Townscape is all about how your olde town looks, from afar, atop a Cotswolds hill!...not many of them in downtown Liverpool, though they seem to be trying their utmost to turn Everton Brow into one!

Latest Tall Building?
Aedas has submitted plans for a £20 million tower on the waterfront, to become the city's tallest building. More when we get details..

Hoist on our own petard?
The latest depressing news from Kings Dock and Brunswick Quay

"Historic sites"
"Developer 'greed'"
"MORE social housing!"


Kings 'Dock' site, Liverpool

Such is the panoply of reasons to say 'no' in Liverpool. We’re sick of having bad news (ie: crap obstructions) to report!

Liverpool is in the midst of huge potential, but obstacles are constantly created to growth. Do we have in the city a strange nostalgia for the miserable times that is manifesting in a refuasal to move on?

Wasn't inward investment the point of Objective One?

Capital of Culture Wake Up Call
Manchester has announced plans for a Manchester International Festival which the Guardian claims will 'challenge the supremacy of Edinburgh as Britain's dominant festival city.'

The biennial event starts summer 2007 (geddit?) with a budget of £5m (Edinburgh has £7.2m).

We had £27m left over from the Fourth Grace fiasco and yet Liverpool still doesn't even have a full management team in place for Capital of Culture...

Good for Manchester we say for maximising their potential - but let us both bin the NW concordat and ask what are we going to do to compete and make sure Liverpool is better!

A touch of downtown class!
A sufficient diversity of twilight and night time activities are essential to a vibrant and successful downtown and we have found a cracker here!


Colin's Bridewell restaurant in the Ropewalks area of downtown has most recently started Monday Evening outdoor plays! using local as well as extremely famous performers. The plays are going down a storm - be sure to get along.


Tall Buildings Get Public Thumbs UP!
We've been saying this all along, the majority of people in the city want a new, modern metropolis - a city to be even more proud of.

That's why the 1000+ people who turned up to Liverpool Vision's excellent public consulation exercise for Lime Street Gateway have overwhelmingly supported the revamping of the station concourse and the building of a new, bigger, better tower.
background and more info (ext site)