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(Lothair Road)
Source: Craig - Local Resident

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David Conn

A Real Reporter

David Conn is a sports writer for the Guardian and you can read more of his articles on his Inside Sport blog. He is also the author of The Beautiful Game? Searching the Soul of Football

Homeowners accuse Liverpool of blighting the area around Anfield Stadium by buying properties and deliberately leaving them empty. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

David Conn
The Guardian,
Monday 6 May 2013

In the blighted streets around Liverpool 's Anfield stadium, residents are packing up and leaving their family homes, so the football club can have them demolished and expand their Main Stand. In the six months since the club scrapped their decade-long plan to build a new stadium on Stanley Park, and reverted to expanding Anfield instead, Liverpool city council has been seeking to buy these neighbours' homes, backed by the legal threat of compulsory purchase.

People's farewells are bitter, filled with anger and heartbreak at the area's dreadful decline and at the club for deepening the blight by buying up houses since the mid-1990s then leaving them empty. A few residents are refusing to move, holding out against the council, which begins negotiations with low offers. These homeowners believe they should be paid enough not only to buy a new house but to compensate for the years of dereliction, stagnation and decline, and crime, fires, vandalism, even murders which have despoiled the area. Their resentment is compounded by the fact that they are being forced to move so that Liverpool, and their relatively new US owner, Fenway Sports Group, can make more money.

On Lothair Road, which backs on to the Anfield Main Stand, one man who lived next door to a house Liverpool own and have left empty, shuttered – "tinned up" as the locals call it – shook his head. "I'm not moving out," he told the Guardian, "I've been driven out."

Read More: Liverpool must soothe restless residents before expanding Anfield

if you have the time and the inclination, then we recommend the following Guardian articles by David Conn:

Liverpool poised to ditch new stadium in favour of Anfield expansion

Liverpool's failure to build a new stadium has let down city and fans

Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth

Anfield landlord seeks compensation over Liverpool stadium blight

Home About Us The Secret Marks Press Cuttings Speak Out Human Rights Housing Deal

1. LFC need land and over the last decade or so they've been buying as much as possible. They have added to the dereliction and abandoned look of the area by keeping scores of their properties unoccupied, boarded up and ill maintained. Over the years, LFC bought up a number of properties on both sides of Lothair Road (not just immediately behind the main stand) – but they were left to fall into decay and dereliction. The road became the target of vandals and arsonists, with 16 (not 14) separate fires in the properties over six years, causing misery to the few residents who remained. LFC land - banking dates back to David Moores' time at the club, it was adopted by H&G and until recently still existed under FSG. Someone at LFC took the decision to do this and until recently they continued to do it. LFC and FSG know how to play the "media" game - with sound bites and PR men neatly avoiding the fact that for many years they have been land-banking properties in the area therefore they played a part in creating or at least adding to the blighted problem.

2. Arena Housing (Your Housing) who are Registered Social Landlords (RSL) with a Corporate Social Responsibility, own possibly the largest number of empty properties in Lothair Road . 2a. Why is a government funded housing association with a corporate social responsibility charter - allowed to actually negate that responsibility by boarding up and neglecting their properties over a very long period of time? Arena have in the recent past, said that they won't spend money fixing their properties because LFC might want to demolish them! 2b. Has that been Arena's policy for the past 10 - 15 years? 2c. How can Liverpool football club's indecision dictate a government funded housing association's policy?

3. Liverpool City Council own properties in Lothair Road but beyond that, they hold immense power when it comes to procedures for dealing with long term empty properties. These procedures enable the council to force owners to think about the long term future of their EMPTY properties and to bring them back into use - yet not one (as far as I am aware) of these many blighted properties which are an eyesore and have had a negative effect on the neighbourhood and its residents, has had such measures implemented upon it.

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