FLO RESPONDS

We didn't think it was ever going to happen, but we have finally had a response from Flo Clucas. It seems, indeed, she's been trying to respond for quite a while but... well, you know what email is like.

I am in receipt of an e mail that was sent to my colleague, Cllr Fielding, this week. The e mail that you sent over the New Year period was responded to, so I cannot understand why you have not received it.

I that e mail, I indicated that I had been away when the earlier e mails to which you referred had been sent(I was actually in the USA), and as some unknown e mails are listed as 'spam', they may have been deleted. I asked you to send the e mail, and any questions to me again, but have not received any to date.

The following, however may be of interest to you.

The streets where the house is situated are in a very poor condition and the majority of local residents have asked for their homes to be demolished as a result. The houses were first condemned in 1973. They were built originally as temporary homes for workers. New properties to be built on the land, will be available for local residents at an affordable price, with the council putting all of the value of any land into the new homes to make them affordable (this is with the consent of the council and needs the consent of the ODPM, as this is a regeneration project for the area)

The exisiting houses, according to English Heritage, are of no historical significance and we have been asked to supply only photographs of the properties before demolition. Number 9 Madryn Street does , however, have a cultural significance, Although that the house where Ringo spent most of his life in Liverpool is only a few minutes distance from Madryn Street, is still occupied and will remain so for many years yet, we have endeavoured to find a new home for this, his early years home. This has been done.

Hmmm... there are some interesting points here, such as if the buildings were in such a bad way as to be condemned in 1973, how come they're still standing and providing homes 33 years later? But that's a side issue from the Ringo Starr issue. It seems that the reports which quoted Flo as saying that Ringo's house was of no historical significance were unfair to her - it was the estate as a whole that the report covered, and hadn't actually been considering the cultural significance of the specific house Ringo was born in. (Hats off to English Heritage, of course, for deciding that what happens in a building doesn't apparently influence its significance at all.)

Anyway, while it was nice to hear from Flo, there are some questions still hanging. What exactly is going to happen to the bricks once the house has been taken down, for instance?

We've emailed back - let's hope this one doesn't get stuck in her spam filters, eh?:

Thanks for your reply, Flo... a mysterious number of emails disappearing there - it might be worth getting the council's tech department to recalibrate the spam filters if they're deleting emails on such a regular basis.

Thank you for clearing up the confusion I had about the report you were quoting from in the press last September - from the BBC News Online report, [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4229068.stm ] , I'd had the impression that it was Ringo's house that had been specifically described as not having significance, but it seems the editing of your comments had changed the meaning from describing the historical importance of the street as a whole, rather than just the one house and its position in musical history and as a tourist attraction in its own right.

What I'm especially curious about now is what the plans for the bricks are once the building has been taken down. Presumably this was costed out before the announcement was made? How much will this cost, and who's going to be footing the bill?

As ever, we'll let you know if and when there's a response.

music flo clucas liverpool ringo starr beatles