THE Florida Farm development has produced a lot of argument about the future development of new jobs and the future for St Helens role as a hub for transhipment from Liverpool on to the rest of the country.
The fact that St Helens has more green belt land than the average local authority has been cited as justification for the loss of more of our green belt land, but surely this should be lauded as a praiseworthy amenity for the local inhabitants enjoyment.
It is not as if St Helens has no brown field left for such a massive development, you have only to take the train to Liverpool to see how much dereliction there is around Pilkingtons old Ravenhead sites to see the potential.
The site is well placed for rail and road links to the M62 and the old rail links from St Helens Junction.
These would have better direct access to Liverpool docks. As many have stated, to have more heavy goods traffic feeding into the M6 at Haydock seems like madness.
It’s already overloaded and stationary at peak times.
But this would cost millions to clear, whom should bear these costs? If a householder left their garden in such a state the council has powers to make the owner clear their place up, so why can they not have the means to make developers clear their derelict land and make a compulsory purchase order?
Finally to see what can be achieved, at Prescot, the former BICC plant was cleared many years ago and the whole site is now a huge retail park. I see the former site of Pirrelli is cleared ready for housing, so it proves what can be done.
Ray Knapman
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