Liverpool City Council really want to bulldoze Ringo's house

Following Grant Shapps' intervention, Liverpool City Council are demanding they be left alone to pull down the street Ringo first lived on:

Cllr Anderson is writing to housing minister Grant Shapps, who demanded a re-think over plans to knock down Ringo’s former home – 9 Madryn Street – and hundreds of others in Toxteth’s Welsh Streets.

The council leader insists demolition and redevelopment of the Welsh Streets remains the best option for the area.

The council said bulldozing 295 homes would cost only £800,000 compared to the estimated bill of £75,000 per property to refurbish the houses.

In his letter Cllr Anderson wrote: “It is doubtful that any developer would consider this a good return on the extensive investment they would have to make in order to bring all the properties up to an acceptable standard, particularly as the risk of ensuring sustainable future occupancy would be high, given the experience of the last 30 years of decline."

A large part of the 30 years of decline has been because of the decade of uncertainty as the council has tried to free up the land for development, so that's a bit of red herring; Liverpool City Council has a habit of pissing on its chips and then saying "nobody will eat these, they smell of piss".

And you've got to love Anderson comparing the cost of flattening the houses with the relatively tiny investment required to make the homes habitable again - surely it'd be more honest to compare the cost of demolition and rebuild rather than just the demolition alone?

Perhaps rather than saying "it's doubtful" that a developer would want to do this, why doesn't Anderson ask them? Is it because he's afraid that - as in some other Northern towns - many developers would love to have the chance to revitalise gorgeous Victorian terraces?