Cllrs Steve Radford, Hazel Williams and Chris Lenton

Liberal Party Councillors for Tuebrook and Stoneycroft

41 Sutton Street , Tuebrook,

Liverpool L13 7EG  0151 259 5935

Dear Editor,

May we welcome several recent initiatives by the city council which we believe will help combat long term vacant properties.

The need to increase the staffing levels supporting the vacants initiative has been long overdue.

The case  for taxing all vacants from day one can also assist.

We are puzzled why the Labour Leader has opposed this budget proposal ?

The council itself is a major source of vacants and we urge the council, prior to the stock transfer, to carry out a rigorous audit of all its own vacants, either put them up for sale or renovate them.

Lastly the greatest source of rampant dereliction across the city is the Pathfinder project which has ghettoized districts such as Anfield, Edge Hill, Picton and Toxteth with needless boarded up houses.

The council should take a lead from other cities and spend more money renovating rather than boarding up homes. Even the council advisors admitted that only 1 in 7 of the homes they intend to demolish are structurally unsound.

If Labour and Lib Dems want to reverse the errosive impact of dereliction upon so many communities ,we invite them to change the direction of the cities Pathfinder Project from demolition to renovation

Cllrs Steve Radford, Hazel Williams, Chris Lenton

Liberal Party Group