Liverpool ’Piggeries’ slum to become luxury flats

Press, 9 November 1978, Page 8

Liverpool ’Piggeries’ slum to become luxury flats

NZPA staff corres. London Liverpool’s infamous “Piggeries" — three 15-storey high-rise council flat blocks — have been sold off. The three blocks were disposed of by the Liverpool City Council at the knockdown price of £15,000 ($28,000) in total — only a fraction of their construction cost 12 years ago and of the cost of tearing them down. The blocks in the Everton area have been reduced to virtual uninhabitable shells by vandalism. The sale, recommended by the council’s housing committee, was to a Surrey development company which plans to spend £l2ft (52.2 M obliterating the vandal damage and transforming the 210

ilflats in the blocks into luxury apartments. ■) The blocks wmuld be sur- ; rounded by a 2.5 m fence and s : patrolled around the ciock to ; keep out vandals, and the ! flats would be sold for - around £BOOO ($15,000) to "the bright sort of people,” each . ot whom would be required j to carry an identity card. The council, which still * owes about SI.3M in con- ’ struction loans on the blocks, * will receive a further pay- (■ ment of about $4OO for each J flat sold by the developers. s The Piggeries are notorious as a high-rise slum in an . area which is itself infamous . for a series of post-war tower block housing dish asters. ) ■ There are several other - tower block council estates O'both in Liverpool itself ano

across the Mersey in Birkenhead which are considered to be nearly as bad as the Piggeries — known officially as Haigh, Canterbury, and Crosby Heights — although they are still occupied.

The city’s former Labour council was seriously considering demolition —at at estimated cost of £IM ($1.86M), slightly more than the original building costs — but the Liberal council which succeeded it after local body elections earlier this year, decided to dispose of the flats to the highest bidder, regardless of the amount offered.

The development company’s bid is believed to have been the highest, but a council spokesman said that there had been similar bids from companies who believed, despite the area and the vandal-

ism, the flats could be transformed into luxury apartments for young, ‘childless couples.

Other bids came from a Texan millionaire, and a patient at the Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, who enclosed postal orders to underwrite his undisclosed bid. The council is also to consider an alternative bid by the Surrey company for the tower blocks, which would leave the actual ownership of the land on which they stand in the hands of the Liverpool city fathers. Under the alternative, the companv would pay a flat £lOOO ($1860) for a 99-ytear lease, plus an annual rental of £3OO ($560) and the $4OO for each flat sold. The offer had a ceiling of £50,000 ($93,000) on it, spread over the 99 years.