Olive Mount Redevelopment:

OBJECTION BY THE
SAVE OLIVE MOUNT HEIGHTS
CAMPAIGN

Letter of objection from the Save Olive Mount Heights [OMH] Campaign, April 2002

To: Development Control Division, Liverpool City Council

Reference: 02F/0792

I co-ordinate the Save Olive Mount Heights Campaign and represent 20 tenants.

The Campaign formally objects to the proposals.

This letter sets out the grounds of our objection. I have studied the plans and written documents and shall refer to the following -
Design Statement [ECD architects] [DS]
Planning Statement [David Lock Associates] [PS]
Report on the Consultation Process [Lock] [RCP].

Planning problem

1. The proposals for the school site will create a dense over-development of a sensitive area next to major traffic junctions, depriving the community of the last open green playing space and mature trees before continuous terraced housing and commercial developments extends to the City Centre. The proposals require a departure from the Unitary Development Plan, and one which was expressly denied to the Blue Coat School when it made an outline application to relocate to this site.

The complex plan is necessitated only by the decision to demolish OMH and relocate their surviving tenants on the school site. If social housing is retained on its existing site then the need to develop the school site so densely is removed. We believe that all three blocks should be retained and could be modernised at reasonable cost. The school annexe site provides an opportunity to build a court of bungalows alongside.

3. The Liverpool Housing Action Trust [LHAT] published a 'preferred option' in 1998 which proposed to -
Retain Block One, the community centre and 28 of the 42 garages,
Demolish Blocks Two and Three,
Redevelop the sites of these blocks, plus that of the school annexe.

For us that is a second-best choice but nevertheless would provide vastly better social housing. It is undeniable that the OMH site represents the best housing land in the area under consideration, being quiet, secluded and distanced from the traffic noise and occasionally rowdiness at the Mill Lane/Childwall Road junction. Neither can we see that the block of back-to-back bungalows, whose interiors are lit from small light-wells are superior dwellings for older people who at present enjoy magnificent views.

Reasons for the LHAT decision

[LHAT's reasons for the proposal to demolish OMH are set out in DS 2.3 and elsewhere as noted. I shall comment on these in turn.]

continued . . .

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