What other self respecting city would waste the opportunity of the north docks by building a huge park? Can you imagine London or even Manchester doing it? No, me neither. We've got a fantastic bit of real estate just sitting there waiting to transform the city. One thing we ain't short of in this part of the world are parks. We need to build top notch offices to encourage world class companies to relocate to bring top paying jobs and a mixture of accomodation from studio apartments to large town houses for aspirant families to move into. A huge park would be a total and utter waste of space and a golden opportunity squandered. Peel need to sell up. They have done nothing with the land they have had for 2 decades.
Hopefully some nice knish and Matzoh ball soup available at half time.
I would absolutely rip your arm off if Manchester City Council were to build a city centre park, you'd have to be an absolute Thatcherite to want an office block instead of a green space
Magus
Player Valuation: £8m
Public open space is not a missed opportunity. I expect this to be a minimum requirement based on the residential element of the area. During my working life I never once met a developer who volunteered anything other than the minimum requirements under local planning policies. The proposals I have seen mooted in the local press do not seem generous for the potential scale of the development. As for not being short of parks in the wider catchment area, that should already have been taken into account in drawing up local policies.
Thatcherite? Really? To want decent paid jobs in Liverpool? To stop the brain drain of young, ambitious people moving to London and Manchester? We don't need more parks or green spaces. We need more jobs and more better paid jobs.
Right, oh. I expect it to be half hearted and underwhelming in that case, so why liken it Central Park? It will be nothing like that. Probably look like a dump within 6 months as there is zero chance of it being maintained properly in this part of the world. What good will that do us?
Jacko93
Player Valuation: £35m
I simply could not agree any less with what any of what you have said here (apart from Peel not doing enough with it for 20 years)
Why, specifically?
Gardocki
Player Valuation: £8m
Urban planning doesn’t sound like your thing.
Parks are a vital part of modern urban living. A park here is vital to complement residential development.
Magus
Player Valuation: £8m
Just because they make grandiose claims doesn't mean they are willingly sacrificing a development opportunity - good open space and high quality landscaping can only improve the marketability of the site. In any event, why should future residents and workers have to go without a decent living and working environment.
Jacko93
Player Valuation: £35m
Your view on what attracts talent to a city is outdated. The attraction of talent is now beyond purely a wage structure, though it forms part of it. People are more aware now of the effect that a working environment has on their mental and physical health, many of the younger generation are making choices of where and who to work for based upon very different criteria that older generations did.
With many office based employers now looking to offer, or in a number of cases being left with no option but to offer hybrid working arrangements, being able to offer an area for workers to walk, jog, sit and chat is a way of enticing them into the office and encourage social interaction.
Your point on London not building more green space? The value of their real estate is so high for precisely the reason that they will not destroy more greenspace to satisfy the need for bigger offices. The parks in London are incredibly well used and an office that is close to one has a higher value than one that is not.
This is all before you consider the actual environmental impacts of areas like this and wildlife diversity.
Also, just to add, Piccadilly gardens in Manchester? They made an absolute mess of it, but it is just one example of a park area created in a bustling city centre. Only a fraction of the size this will be, but they created it nonetheless. Design of it is the biggest issue with it (outside of it being in Manchester)
Yeah why build a unique park on the waterfront when you can bang a load of generic apartments on there
I'm very interested in cities and what makes them work well. We have enough parks. Everton Park is huge and is mainly a dogs' toilet. Stanley Park and Newsham Park aren't very far away, either.
But one of my points is that it wouldn't be unique or anything special. It might be called Central Park but it's not going to look like it, is it?