In May 2010, Labour won the Liverpool City Council Election with the Election Pledge: to make the redevelopment of the Boot Estate a priority.
Within days, Labour stopped the planned demolition of 74 family homes on Broad Lane/Winskill Road, The same option had been offered to the previous Lib-Dem administration who rejected it in favour of continued demolition against the community’s wishes.
For 10 years, the Lib-Dem run Council had mismanaged the redevelopment of the estate producing a municipal scandal that shamed the City. Current Lib-Dem leader Richard Kemp had been responsible for implementing the original community inspired scheme but had been forced to resign over his mishandling of the propovals.
While developers were keen to make rapid progress, the political ineptitude of the Li-Dems meant that by 2010 , after 10 years, only 210 new dwellings out of 1500 had been built.
By 2018 under Labour, Sigma/Countryside ( previously ‘Inpartnership‘ ) completed 829 new homes on the renamed Norris Green Village; and New City Vision ( previously ‘Bishop Loch‘ ) completed 694 dwellings on the renamed Ellergreen and Parklands estates.
Of the total of 1523 new dwellings plus 73 refurbished, 584 were social rented, 221 private rented, and 792 for sale for owner-occupation - completely transforming the area so that no-one refers to the ‘Boot Estate’ anymore - but the 10 years of housing blight and redevelopment cock-ups caused by the Lib-Dems will never be forgotten.
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