Have your say on car park plans

LIVERPOOL City Council is inviting residents to have their say over plans for a new car park to replace the burnt out multi storey at King's Dock. The Liverpool Waterfront Car Park at the Echo Arena was left devastated when fire broke on New Year's Eve, 2017. Investigations into the blaze by various authorities are underway.

In the aftermath of the blaze, the Council created a 600 space open car park as a temporary replacement. Now, plans have been drawn up for a number of proposals for a permanent replacement at Monarch's Quay, King's Dock.

Other options include the rebuilding of the car park on the existing site. The decision on the permanent replacement car park will be subject to discussions with the insurance company.

The event will consider the principle of a new park and more detailed proposals will follow. However, the Council will use the opportunity to take on board any recommendations to come from Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service's report into the fire on New Year's Eve. The Council will look to implement any proposed safety improvements as part of any new car park construction.

The consultation event will take place at the Liverpool Arena Exhibition Centre, on Wednesday, 21 March 2018, between 1pm and 7pm.

Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson, said:- "We are considering a new multi-storey car park on the site and the proposals relate to the size and scale of the building, the number of storeys and capacity. The views of the people of Liverpool are really important, so we would like as many residents as possible to come along to the consultation event, look at the plans and tell us what they think."

Online access to ancestry and archives

A long term project to digitise carefully and accurately all of the electoral registers for the City of Liverpool, from 1832 to 1970, held by Liverpool Record Office, within the Central Library and Archive, has just come to fruition. This has resulted in over 671,000 high quality images and more than 8 million records being searchable online for the 1st time via the Ancestry website.

Previously, people researching their family tree would have had to visit the Record Office in person and consult the fragile originals. They would also have needed to know the addresses where their ancestors lived and then look up the relevant polling district which changed frequently through time. The simple search is now possible online and is free at all of Liverpool's public libraries as well as Central Library.

Councillor Wendy Simon says:- "This transforms access for everyone to such a vital series of records which is so useful for family and local history in so many ways. By opening up this major resource it will fascinate many and lead to lots of interesting discoveries and connections being made, which previously was very difficult and time consuming if not impossible.  We are very grateful to the dedication and patience of all of the experienced and knowledgeable Liverpool Record Office team in seeing this project through from conception to completion and to the excellent support, skill, and investment of the Ancestry team. The originals will be preserved permanently in the state of the art repository of Liverpool Record Office under the expert care of the Conservation team."

Senior UK Content Manager Miriam Silverman says:- "Electoral registers are such an essential resource for people researching their family history and these newly digitised Liverpool records will certainly be a huge help to the local community, as well as people all around the Country. We're really happy to have been a part of the project and to continue bringing interesting and useful records to Ancestry members".

Litter fines to be used to make Liverpool cleaner and greener

INCOME from some of the fines issued to people for dropping litter in Liverpool are set to be used to help make the City cleaner and greener. A ₤20,000 fund to help community groups make improvements in their neighbourhoods is being funded using a slice of the income from the penalty notices handed out by Kingdom enforcement staff.  Bids for Environmental Initiatives Fund grants of up to ₤500 are now being made available for organisations including community groups, Schools and small businesses, enabling them to play a more active role in improving their local environment.

Councillor Steve Munby, Cabinet member for City services, said:- "The money raised from litter fines is already being reinvested in helping keep the City clean, whether it's putting in additional cleansing or tracking down flytippers. What we are doing here is taking a slice of the fines for environmental improvement projects.  While the grant to each group may not be a large amount of money they will still have an impact on making neighbourhoods greener and cleaner and will help to get communities working together to improve their neighbourhoods. It could include schemes such as:- community gardens, engaging children in gardening projects or community clean ups."

Applications can be made by completing the application form available at online.  The deadline for applications is Friday, 27 April 2018, at 12 noon.

People with deafness and hearing loss still don't enjoy full access to healthcare

A new report by charity Action on Hearing Loss entitled Good Practice? has found that people with deafness and hearing loss still don't enjoy equality of access to healthcare.

Despite the Accessible Information Standard having come into effect in August 2016, which legally requires all providers of NHS care and publicly funded adult social care to record and meet the communication needs of people with disabilities and sensory loss, the report has found that many GP surgeries are still falling short. The report found that 64% of people who are deaf or have hearing loss still feel unclear about their health advice after their GP appointment, at least some of the time.

A key area of concern for patients with deafness and hearing loss was booking urgent same day appointments, with more than ⅓ of survey respondents having experienced difficulties. Of these, 19% of survey respondents said they had experienced difficulties because they were offered a same day phone appointment by their GP surgery, even though they cannot use the phone.

Roger Wicks, Director of Policy and Campaigns at Action on Hearing Loss, said:- "These findings show that in many GP surgeries, the requirements of the Accessible Information Standard are not routinely being met. Importantly, the Standard requires that 'one or more communication or contact methods which are accessible and useable by the patient' and our survey in fact found that almost a third of our respondents had had to ask a family member, friend or carer to call their GP surgery or NHS service for them. It's not acceptable that people with deafness and hearing loss are in some cases still being denied the personal autonomy over their health and wellbeing that many of us take for granted. The Accessible Information Standard has represented a huge step forward and has put the communication needs of people with invisible conditions like deafness and hearing loss on the agenda, but its clear more needs to be done to ensure that there is no postcode lottery in terms of accessibility. We must remember that the NHS was founded on the principle of free high quality health care for all, this report shows that 70 years on people who are deaf or have hearing loss still don't enjoy equal access to health care. We urge GP surgeries, NHS England, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to work together to ensure the requirements of the Standard are properly implemented and enforced"

The report also found that just 1 in 10 respondents had been asked if they needed support contacting GP services, despite the Standard requiring that all patients be asked, and 45% said staff at their GP surgery let them know it was their turn to be seen verbally rather than via a visual display screen. NHS England estimates that the cost of people with hearing loss missing appointments; because they didn't hear their name being called in the waiting room; could be as high as ₤15m every year.

To read the full report, please visit on the Action Hearing Loss website, you can Also to find out more about the Accessible Information Standard on the website.