Neptune confirm Raven Court opening date - Autumn 2011!! (Garston and Halewood Liberal Democrats)

Garston and Halewood Liberal Democrats <info@garstonld.org.uk>

Neptune confirm Raven Court opening date - Autumn 2011!!

July 22, 2010 9:00 AM

No new shops until Autumn 2011!

At a meeting of the Halewood Area Partnership Board this week a representative of Neptune Developments, the developers responsible for regenerating Raven Court, gave a presentation of the current state of play on the project.

During the course of the presentation it was disclosed that the current anticipated timescale would not see the new development completed until the autumn of 2011.

That's right - no new shops for Halewood until 2011!

No doubt KMBC will come up with lots of good excuses why it is taking so long and no doubt the local residents requests for consultation on the scheme will be top of the list of reasons for the further delays following the questions raised about the new anchor for the shops was rumoured to be Tesco.

As we now know it will be Aldi that will be the cornerstone of the new development, a decision that the majority of local residents wanted as it happens, somewhat undermining the Labour activist/candidate who was running around Halewood 2 years ago trying to claim the credit for securing Tesco's investment!!

However, throughout the process officers from KMBC have made several public statements assuring the local community that this redevelopment would see the first phase completed by the end of 2010.

It was also reported in a KMBC briefing note produced by council officers for the May 2009 edition of the Halewood Community News (page 11) that the delay in re-opening negotiations has added "..a few weeks to the development programme" - a few weeks is now turning into a few months it would seem!

Let's not forget the origins of the redevelopment of Raven Court go back over ten years and were first muted by the then Halewood SRB board!

The council has also used Raven Court as a political football in my view, erecting large posters/banners and hoardings promoting the "new retail development" just before local election time, raising residents hopes that something was imminent.

The latest of these (see picture) were put up at the start of April this year and yet we now know from Neptune themselves this week that the planning application has not yet even been submitted!

Just why is has taken so long to get to this point is quite frankly astonishing and now we know it is going to be over at least another year before we have any hope of seeing this project completed.

We could have built 5 Liverpool Ones in that time!!