A derelict building has been the subject of "fires and flytipping" since the boards stopping people from breaking in were blown down.
The building is now a worry to those who live in the area around Sea View Road and Chaucer Street in Bootle, with Anne Mulholland speaking up about the antisocial behaviour that the former Chaucer Vaults is claimed to attract. The mum-of-five has labelled the building a "deathtrap" with her claiming to have called Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service on a number of occasions.
The 73-year-old spoke to the ECHO about how she and other neighbours had tried to contact Sefton Council after people would apparently break in, start fires and fly-tip in the building when the boards that surrounded the building blew down last year. She has also claimed the building was subject to antisocial behaviour since before the Covid-19 pandemic but has become significantly worse in recent months.
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She said: "It used to be a pub at one time, it then started getting done up and they were doing well there but then they applied for it to be a House of Multiple Occupancy (HMO), which the council voted against. They then put in planning permission for it to be turned into flats, which we didn't object to but then there seemed to be a problem. It's now just been left.
"It's been like that for more than two years and it's being used as a dumping ground. All the boards got blown down quite a while ago when we had really bad gales. We asked for them to be boarded back up again but nothing's been done.
"There's one [board] round the corner on Chaucer Street at the side of the building is on the pavement and there's one on Sea View Road that's on the street but also overlapping onto the road which still hasn't been sorted. Kids go in there and light fires. We've had the fire brigade I don't know how many times and they did say that they would pass on to the arson team."
On Sefton Council's planning application portal, it shows that an application was received in 2016 to change the former Chaucer Vaults pub into an 18 bedroom HMO. The design and access statement submitted said that the pub had been closed for more than 20 years at the time of the application, with the application subsequently being dismissed.
Following the application being rejected, a further application asking for planning permission to transform the building into nine self-contained flats was also rejected in February 2017, with the application showing "insufficient regard to policy requirement(s)". Finally, in September 2017, plans were approved for the building to be transformed into four flats with a communal space on the ground floor.
Despite the approval of the plans, the building has been left derelict and run down. Anne continued: "It's a danger for kids. They have a basement in there and part [of the floor] has opened. Say a kid wanders in there and goes through that hole, it would kill him. You know what kids are like. We try and keep my grandchildren in so they stay away from [the building]. It is a death trap to children."
A Sefton Council spokesperson said: "I understand our Building Control can and will conduct a site visit in the coming days.
"If the building is found to be insecure and unoccupied, then under the Local Govt Act 1982 a notice can be served on the owners, requiring them to carry out the necessary securing works."
