According to the Gasjet’s outgoing Fylde reporter Joe Robinson, the housebuilding targets that have generated the housebuilding blight across Marton Moss, Queensway and the farmland around the end of the M55 are under review by the government. The green and pleasant land surrounding Blackpool and Fylde could actually be saved from execution by bulldozer.
Peter Callow seems to have changed his tune after his party had their ears stuffed with Denley Barrow’s money and steamrollered the Kensington plans through without listening to anyone negatively affected by them. He labels this change in policy as a ‘revolution’ and has said that this may mean they can look at redeveloping inner areas rather than allowing Kensington to build on ‘our last remaining areas of green space’.
At least he now accepts that as a fact but if he was bothered he wouldn’t have allowed his party to insulate themselves from reality and push through plans for thousands of houses on it.
Callow has previously denied the possibility of regenerating the urban areas, quoting us a figure of £350m just to ‘make a start’, so what’s changed? Is the council suddenly awash with funds?
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Nice one Phil,perhaps the PB has lent the council the money?(lol)
That Callow is a complete tool, he spouts shite that puts Alistair Campbell to shame.
I hope the housebuilding in Wyre can be stopped now,as that is a plan to gridlock the area.
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I agree with that last sentence wholeheartedly. Potential housebuyers from other areas see the coast as a nice place to live and conveniently forget about our employment problems and things like it’s not much of a life to work 8:30 to 6:30 in Manchester whilst living here. They also know very little about subsidence (with many saying building on sand is the problem when it’s not), nor do they know what the first signs of it are in an area. Let’s hope Kensington is stopped and stopped for good in this area. The directors have made tons of money so I don’t know why they are SO greedy as to continue with their building on every scrap of land policy. There are loony schemes in Fylde, Blackpool and Wyre and if they’re stopped I will have a glass or two of Champagne.
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They have compliant and corrupt councils to thank along with TWATCUNTS like Gary Payne who bend over forwards to help developers like NPL etc.
I too will drink champagne if these plans are stopped, especially the one in Wyre which will cripple our overcongested roads, these councils dont care a jot, bastards all of them.I fuckin hate them all.
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Interesting report here folks,it includes Blackpool:http://www.centreforcities.org/assets/files/10-06-07%20Private%20Sector%20Cities%20web.pdf
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very interesting, nay – sobering report!
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Hi Jon,its dynamite.
Fine cut all these public sector jobs, and then what?????
Blackpool is screwed.
I agree, we need more private sector jobs but Blackpool is terrible as the report says,so is Coventry which used be a massive manufacturing centre.13 yeras of a labour goverment……………Never again!
June 22nd will be a big day in the history of this nation.
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Just skimming that report it doesn’t seem to realise that jobs grow in places with good transport systems. Preston has fantastic road networks on the outskirts and has had a lot of government money ploughed in as well. No wonder it has done well. But when you look at the rate of unemployment as a percentage in local towns with the Lancashire County Council stats for the area larger towns with the exception of Preston have larger unemployment percentages than smaller ones which makes a mockery of the arguments in this report. It comes as no surprise that the report authors are based in London (a hotspot for people with their heads up their own backsides) no doubt written by people in their 20s or slightly older having never had a real job or had to struggle to get work without some school or family connection making it easy for them.
It seems more a case of looking at Cities tend to be rich in the centre with workers commuting from increasingly large surrounding areas whilst those actually living in the centres have high uemployment and low skills. Getting lots of people into a place doesn’t create prosperity if you get a large number of unskilled people like Blackpool did and losing a decent train link really didn’t help as commuting to Manchester (Preston really isn’t as good for jobs whatever the report says) is too hard to do long term. Also there’s limited land to build any businesses on – and as B&M has proved the location isn’t central enough to other towns. So should we all move to somewhere that’s successful? Or should the government have the guts to provide financial incentives for businesses to start up in such areas and give them a competitive advantage to help balance out all the disincentives. After all getting some money out of a business at a discounted rate has to be a lot better than paying a lot of people to sit at home all day.
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nail on the head there Frustrated, transport is vital;the Fyldes trsnaport infrastructure is feeble.
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I would think all Cllrs locally would welcome this move by the new Coalition Government, and I say so on the feature I have just uploaded, sorry for the plug, but the rss thingy can take hours to update.
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If this pushes the council to work towards redeveloping some parts of Blackpool with private money rather than constantly building on green belt land, then we are indeed heading in the right direction.
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I can’t really see how that is going to happen, though. Well, not with Kensington building the properties anyway. They tend to aim for the more affluent groups of people and I don’t think Blackpool town centre has many of those.
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No – I can’t see it either. Densely built properties with communal spaces and few private green spaces at very high prices are more Kensington’s type. Someone like Urban Splash with some real vision is what’s needed. They would keep any worthwhile character. And surely if this building project is going to work, the council need to fund the purchase of these properties and restrict who can live in them. The right to buy needs to be scrapped because it loses too much council housing stock and for too long people who didn’t need to keep living in council housing made a lot of money by buying instead of moving out.
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Totally agree Frustrated, Urban Splash or a company with the same values would be perfect for it.
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