Day 20 - Tuesday 13th January 2009

* Late last week and rightly so Wendy Burden who is chairing the Inquiry put a block on any more submissions to the Inquiry unless it was of a nature to have a direct bearing on the outcome. The amount of detail has been staggering even to the point of what car fuel we will be driving on in our cars in twenty years time. A valid point but in the scheme of things, there are greater issues to deal with. So today the cross examination of Knowsley's Planning expert Gary Halman continued.

* Gary defended Knowsley's proposals over the proposed development saying it was their biggest consultation exercise ever. They have gone to 'great pains' to address and mitigate concerns raised. The authority wanted to take forward a development that they think will be in the best interests of local people. Peter Fisher of Knowsley Lib Dems, and our old mate Stephen Sauvain representing the Combined Authorities went through the old chestnuts of floor space in the retail area. This has been covered in great length with other applicants and no wonder Wendy Burden was getting a tadge pissed off, as we repeated old ground. At last the chat turned to the Ground development itself and the Blues need for a new Stadium.

* Gary admitted that there would always be an impact in any development and it was the job of the planning process to balance the benefits with any harm to the greater good of the majority of people. He said if it was possible to grasp these benefits without excessive harm, a development was then worth pursuing. Gary put the perspective that of course on match days a big impact on the area would be noticed, but this would be on certain days of the year only. This had to be balanced with the significant gains the proposal would bring. He said he did not wish to underestimate the concern of local people, and that he did not accept the increased traffic on match days did not represent material harm because of the measures put in place to control the crowds and traffic on match days.

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* Gary said that a huge number of officers had been involved in this process of defining and interpreting planning policies and trying to find the right way of applying them. He said the point of the public inquiry was to determine the correct interpretation of those policies. KEIOC now had their time with Gary and asked whether Blues fans had been consulted enough in the whole process. Not surprisingly Gary answered that it would be difficult for Knowsley Council to consult beyond the local population, but he thought the proposal had such a high profile it would be difficult to believe Everton fans did not know about it and it would have been easy for them to make their views known. He went onto say that is was not Knowsley's responsibility to deliver a new and better stadium for Everton Football Club but it was accepted that Everton and the shite played an important part in the sub-region and the opportunity to provide this improved facility had arisen.

* Roger representing the Combined Authorities got to his feet quizzing their secret weapon Keith Nutter (just love that name). Keith added that the retail proposals would affect the vitality and viability of other centres in the region, which would conflict with planning policies. He added that the size of the development exceeded the needs of the local community, and stressed again that taking the town higher up the retail hierarchy, in contravention of planning policies. Keith stressed that he did not think the need for a store of the size planned by Tesco had been determined and thought the needs of the local people could be met by a smaller store, which would mean curtains for any proposed Ground. The population of Kirkby was around 40,000 people and that the Tesco had suggested that the development would attract six times this amount to shop in the town. He said this was unrealistic and unsustainable and described the Tesco's method of determining the catchment area for the proposal as 'simplistic'.

* Keith finished with the fact that he could not see how these proposals would help change the fortunes of the existing town centre. He said he thought it was designed to meet the needs of the retailers, and expressed the surrounding areas, such as Bootle, already had to cope with the impact of a number of significant developments, such as shite One and the Kirkby proposals would exacerbate their problems. Patrick Clarkson QC (Tesco's Brief) then gave Keith a grilling, but The Nut stood firm and refuted claims regarding the size of the development being needed. Old ground was covered again, and I was ready for a drink, of which I had a few.

Still more to come tomorrow, can't wait............

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