'Forgotten' residents living with a wasteland on their…

'Forgotten' residents living with a wasteland on their doorsteps

People living next to a derelict building site which was supposed to become a key focal point in the city's famous Chinatown fear they have been forgotten.

The "horrendous" wasteland off Great George Street has become a fly-tipping blackspot since the Chinatown Development Company's plans to create a bustling £200m "New Chinatown" there began to fall apart in 2016, and investors, who claimed to have put in around £6m, demanded their money back.

The final nail in the coffin of the doomed project came earlier this month when the Great George Street Project Ltd, which purchased the CDC in 2018, collapsed into administration. Residents of the streets which border the site, Cookson Street, Hardy Street, Upper Pine Street and Grenville Street South, now face "a general feeling of uneasiness" as the future of the area remains unknown.

Frank Greer, 65, who lives on Grenville Street South, said: "It's horrendous. Six, seven years we have put up with fires being lit at night, squatters, school kids going onto the site first thing in the morning, and fly-tipping. You will literally hear trucks pulling up and things being dumped at 4am in the morning.

"Everything revolves around the building site. It's horrendous, worrying, a great concern to myself and some very elderly neighbours, who are over 90 years old.

"I have lived here 20 years. Before the building site, things were relatively calm and peaceful. We had hardly any issues, if any at all. Now police are there day and night. The fences, they put them back up and within days they're down again. And it's not very nice to hear cars pulling up and things being dumped outside your house in the morning."

He said both he and several neighbours had complained to Liverpool Council about the site over the years, but the problems persisted.

He said: "There's a general feeling of uneasiness. I think we have been forgotten. People are tired of going to the right people and reporting it and nothing being done. These fences are up and down like yo-yos. We'd like to see much more security, fencing and some observation of the situation by the council themselves.

"People accepted that the site was going to be the New Chinatown, but we have ended up with nothing but a derelict site and problems that aren't our fault. I'm sure (the council) try, but the end result is the same old mess for years and years. Why should locals suffer for a bankrupt project they had nothing to do with?"

People living on Grenville Street South and Cookson Street, Liverpool, are tired of the constant problems caused by the derelict New Chinatown site (Frank Greer)

In December, Liverpool City Council confirmed that the sale of the New Chinatown site was being led by the site's administrators. A spokesperson said: “As the private company owning parts of the site along Great George’s Street is in administration, the next steps for its future currently lies in the hands of the administrators."

A spokesperson further explained that the administrators are responsible for the hoardings and security for plot one by Hardy Street, and plot three by The Wedding House. The Council’s responsibility is for plot two, bounded by Cookson Street and Upper Pitt Street.

They said: "The Council is currently in the process of making improvements to plot two, to be completed in the coming few weeks. The Council has also contacted to the administrators about activity on their sites."