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Partners in
place for £200 million housing investment
MORE than £200 million is
to be spent in Liverpool, delivering 1,500 new homes and bringing a
further 1,000 back into use. Liverpool City Council has
appointed its official Housing Delivery Partners; a consortium made
up of private housing developer Redrow Homes, affordable housing
provider Liverpool Mutual Homes (LMH) and its building contractor
Willmott Dixon. Redrow Homes and LMH will jointly build 1,500 new
homes and LMH will bring 1,000 back into use
The 'Building Our Future' partnership, which will run for an
initial five years, has the potential to attract over £200 million
of private investment into the City, focusing on building the right
homes, in the right place, at the right time.
Redrow will develop housing for sale bringing a range of executive
homes to Liverpool and will identify and acquire land to enhance the
Council's own development sites. LMH will develop affordable housing
by investing their own funding and by attracting grant funding. They
will also be seeking to bring 1,000 empty properties back into use.
Willmott Dixon will work on behalf of LMH to build new homes and
refurbish properties to enable them to be brought back into use.
Liverpool City Council will provide strategic planning and housing
need information, as well as selling surplus land to the partnership
for development. Land and investment will be brought together
in a planned way, with any capital receipts generated by the sale of
Council sites and assets reinvested back into the Partnership.
Using their combined experience and expertise, the partnership will
provide a wide range of house types from affordable to executive
homes, without the Council being required to fund the schemes from
its own resources. The partnership will also prioritise
employing local people, providing training and supporting local
supply chains, as well as developing and delivering complementary
economic development projects.
The partnership will work on a wide range of initiatives to tackle
empty properties, including those that have not been lived in for a
long time, such as maximising investment from property owners and
securing funding to bring houses back into use. Areas where groups
of empty properties are most heavily impacting on streets will be
particularly targeted.
Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson launched the search for a Housing
Delivery Partner last summer as part of his plans to work with
public and private sector organisations to drive up the quality of
housing in the City. He said:- "I want everyone in Liverpool
to have access to a decent home, and that's why improving our
housing stock is one of my top priorities. I promised to build 5,000
new homes in Liverpool by 2016 and bring 1,000 back into use, and
we're already well on course to exceed that target. This partnership
will allow us to do even more.
We're using this innovative approach to help us build on the
fantastic progress we are making in housing in this City. It
will unlock new investment opportunities and enable us to pool
resources and expertise at a time which is vital when we are facing
significant spending cuts. It will create new jobs and deliver new
and refurbished properties in the neighbourhoods that need it most,
as well as improving the lives of thousands of local people."
The partnership will carry out a comprehensive review of the housing
market across the City, to identify development and refurbishment
opportunities; taking into account housing need and demand; the
Council's Housing Strategy; and the need to complement other actual
and planned regeneration projects.
The 2, full delivery programmes for each area of work; for
new-build and one for refurbishment; will be agreed by the
partnership board, before being recommended to the Council's Cabinet
for consideration and approval in September this year.
Assistant Mayor and Cabinet Member for Housing, Councillor Ann
O'Byrne, said:- "This new partnership will play a major part
in the on going transformation of housing in this City, and will
help us build on the fantastic momentum we've created in recent
years.
It's another great example of how we are finding imaginative ways of
providing the type of good quality housing this City needs.
Once the partnership is in place, we'll be working together to drive
forward some really important schemes which will increase housing
choice and breathe new life into communities. The combined
experience and expertise that this consortium brings with it gives
me real confidence that we can make the partnership a massive
success story for Liverpool."
Welcoming the partnership, Redrow Homes (Lancashire) managing
director Steve Greenhalgh, said:- "We're delighted to be part
of a pioneering arrangement designed to deliver 2,500 much needed
homes across the City.
We're particularly pleased that Redrow's investment in private sale
homes will help stimulate the creation of affordable housing,
including the refurbishment of empty housing stock. The City
Wide approach and joined-up thinking between the Council, Liverpool
Mutual Homes and ourselves is what makes this project so exciting."
Chief Executive at LMH, Steve Coffey, said:- "This is
tremendous news for us, residents and Liverpool as a whole; major
changes are going to be made to housing right across the City.
We've worked very closely with the Council since it transferred
15,000 homes to us in 2008, raising the standard of housing
significantly during our initial 5 year, £400m improvement
programme. We have continued this approach since with our 1st new
build developments.
We share the Mayor's vision and ambition to deliver new, high
quality, sustainable housing and bring back into use empty homes to
meet demand. It goes much deeper than just the physical buildings.
We are creating resilient and resourceful neighbourhoods that
address a wide range of issues such as tackling anti-social
behaviour and helping people into work and training to make sure
they are given the chance to lead enjoyable and prosperous lives."
John Frankiewicz, divisional chief executive, Willmott Dixon Capital
Works, said:- "Willmott Dixon is delighted to be a part of
this exciting and innovative partnership with Liverpool City Council, Liverpool Mutual Homes and Redrow Homes.
This partnership builds on our strong track record of delivery
within Liverpool, which recently includes constructing Notre Dame
Catholic College and a new home for Archbishop Beck Catholic Sports
College. It will allow us to unlock employment and training
opportunities for the people of Liverpool, an aspect of our business
underlined recently when we won a Queen's Award for Enterprise.
We look forward to working with our partners to deliver new homes
and bring empty properties back into use in communities throughout
the City."
Programme delivery will be closely monitored by the partnership,
with quarterly and annual reports provided to the Council's Cabinet.
The 'Building Our Future' partnership will be for a period of
5 years (2014 to 2019), with the option to extend for a further 5
years (2019 to 2024). It supports the Mayor's target of delivering
5,000 new homes and bringing a further 1,000 properties back into
use over the next 3 years.
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EQUIPMENT BOOST
FOR 5 DISABLED MERSEYSIDE CHILDREN
5 disabled Merseyside
children are among the first to benefit from a new charity
partnership which has raised more than £450,000 to provide
specialist equipment.
The equipment is being funded through a partnership between leading
UK children's disability charity Newlife Foundation and The Morgan
Foundation, which supports organisations across Merseyside including
education therapy group Stick 'n' Step, Gilbrook Special School on
the Wirral and Activate Arts in Kirkby.
The money was raised through a recent (May) Morgan Foundation golf
day and gala evening which featured rock legend Robert Plant. It
will be used to provide vital equipment for families working with
Newlife Foundation and living in The Morgan Foundation catchment
area of Merseyside, North Wales, West Cheshire and North
Shropshire.*
In the 1st tranche of funding, almost £22,000 of equipment is
being provided for a total of 13 children. In Southport, 1 child
is getting £2,412 to help pay for a wheelchair and another will be
receiving a £660 specialist car seat. Car seats will also be
provided for 2 4 year olds, 1 each in Bootle and St Helens,
with a child in Prenton set to get a £3,600 bed.
Newlife Foundation has previously funded 196 Equipment Grants for
children on Merseyside, totalling £250,856.
* Wolverhampton Wanderers' charity, Wolves Aid, receives 10%
of the annual funding budget to replicate the work of The Morgan
Foundation in the Wolverhampton area.
Rogue traders jailed for conning
elderly homeowners 2
men who conned elderly vulnerable people over building work on their
homes have been jailed. Dean Evans , aged 30, of Manor House
Lane, Higher Heath, Whitchurch, Shropshire and Lee Hargreaves, aged
23, previously of Mather Avenue, St Helens, were sentenced at
Liverpool Crown Court after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing at
the City's magistrates court to offences under the Fraud Act and
Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading Regulations (CPR)
Evans pleaded guilty to 9 offences under the CPR and 1 fraud
offence, and Hargreaves pleaded guilty to 3 CPR offences and 2 fraud
offences.
Liverpool Trading Standards Officers took action after Evans and
Hargreaves carried out painting, roofing and guttering work on a
number of properties during the summer of 2013 after cold calling in
Liverpool 9.
The work was of poor quality, they didn't give the required
paperwork or cancellation notices and failed to return and put right
faults when contacted by the homeowners.
They were also charged with fraud by North Wales Police following a
complaint about overcharging for work they claimed to have carried
out on a property in the Wrexham area. All of the home owners
targeted were elderly.
His Honour Judge Hatton said that he had to take into account the
numbers of elderly victims, the fact the offences were committed
over a period of time and in different parts of the country. He said
that the only appropriate sentence was custodial and the difference
in sentencing reflected the fact that Evans was clearly the
ringleader.
He sentenced Evans to 10 months in prison and Hargreaves to 6
months. He ordered that they both be disqualified from driving for 2
years as they were itinerant fraudulent traders and ordered that a
vehicle seized from Evans during the investigation be forfeited.
John McHale, head of Liverpool Consumer Protection, said:-
"This is an important result for the service and its partners
working together to protect vulnerable residents in the City. We
will not accept the targeting of consumers and in particular
vulnerable members of our communities by rogue traders. Consumers
have rights and those rights need to be protected and we will
continue to ensure we use all statutory powers at our disposal to
deal with rogue trader activity. We would also advise people
not to accept work from building workers offering to do work when
they cold call. This case is a classic example for homeowners."
Range High School Chemists Create
Winning Formula!
BUDDING chemists from Range High School will
represent the North West in the final of a national schools'
chemistry competition after beating off hopefuls from across the
region.
The students from Range won the North West regional heat of the
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Schools' Analyst Competition held
at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in Preston.
The 3 AS level chemistry students; Ciara McQuaid, Chloe Uffendel and
Jonathan Baker, and triumphed over 10 schools from across Lancashire
and Merseyside and will represent the North West region at the
prestigious UK final which will also take place at UCLan in June
2014.
Each team undertook various practical analytical experiments based
on problems relevant to industrial or social needs. These were
judged on skill, understanding and accuracy using tests intended to
promote team work and safety in the laboratory.
Jillian Stretch, a chemistry teacher from Range High School,
accompanied the pupils to the UCLan event. She commented:-
"This was the first time our school has attended the event and so I
was extremely proud that they won the North West heat. They are
looking forward to representing the region in the national final.
The students thoroughly enjoyed working on the tasks and worked well
as a team. The one thing they all agreed on was that they had fun.
It has increased their confidence in their analytical skills and
given them a taste of facilities available at university."
UCLan Senior Lecturer in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry Dr Rob
Smith commented:- "Congratulations to the pupils from Range
High School. Once again we saw just how capable young chemists from
across the North West are and what great lab and analytical skills
they have.
This year's RSC competition is particularly special for us as UCLan
will host the final next month. We are looking forward to welcoming
the 20 school teams from across the country to put their analytical
science skills to the test and see who will be crowned the overall
winner."
You have helped us to donate
£96.00 so far to the Liverpool Lord Mayor's Charity
 WE
have have donated £96.00 to the Lord Mayor's Charity (Liverpool),
thanks to your help buying our B.O.A. 70th Anniversary DVD 's. Sadly
we did not sell all 50, so we are going to continue to sell them and
donate £3.00 from the sales until we have sold all 50 of them. The
donation of £96.00 will go towards Councillor Gary Millar's total,
that will help the Linda McCartney Centre, The Whitechapel Centre,
Variety - The Children's Charity and The Michael Causer Foundation.
As Councillor Erica Kemp was been sworn in to the role of
Liverpool's Lord Mayor on Tuesday, 11 June 2014, further donations
from us to the Liverpool Lord Mayor's Charity will now go to
Councillor Erica Kemp appeal fund. We would like to say a big well
done to Councillor Gary Millar for his efforts, over 2013 to 2014
and wish Councillor Erica Kemp good luck with her efforts. |
