In Granby: On site

This blog hasn’t done a site visit to Granby 4 Streets since early February, so I thought it was about time we did. Because things have been moving on.Three weeks ago now, at the beginning of March I come here late on in an afternoon.

Still soft-stripping the Community Land Trust houses at this stage, so this side of the mostly empty street relatively undisturbed.

In the site house though, work has not finished. The drop in session for local residents trailered in the February CLT newsletter being in full flow.

If you  call getting on a train from Head Office in Swindon ‘dropping in!’ Great to see you anyway.

Time passes and things move on. I call in briefly on Tuesday this week to photograph some of the young people who are now joining in on site.

Doing the mix of practical and class based learning that will get them their City and Guilds Construction qualification.

Undaunted I return to Granby this morning, Thursday and a lovely spring morning too, for a longer look at what’s happening.

And round in Cairns Street?

But let’s pause to reflect on how life is at the moment in the three houses that are actually occupied on that side of the road. Two of them are in the photograph above, squeezed in between the CLT houses that are clearly on site. From inside the sounds of generators, drilling and assorted heavy works can be heard from eight each morning until four each afternoon. A welcome sound in many ways, and one much wished for over many years. But nevertheless a shock to experience after decades of near silence.

But how is the famous Granby street planting getting on through all of this, I hear you asking? Well it’s having to be moved. On the LMH side of the road the utilities companies now need access to the pavements to start putting services into the nearly completed houses.

So yesterday Gemma from the yet to start on their bit of the site Terrace 21 Co-op, nevertheless turned up with some friends to begin the temporary decanting of the now flowering spring bulbs and other plants, including a few trees!

Big thanks here also due to the LMH construction workers who are helping Gemma and the residents with the careful moving of the plants and their soil. They’re also going to build new planting boxes for the street for them all to move back into. Well done all, a splendid example of  genuine community co-operation.

Judged too busy and simply too hazardous for the young people in fact. Who’ll be back on gentler days to learn construction in a guaranteed safe environment. So I’ll be back for the photos then.

Moving on then to see how Plus Dane are doing round in Beaconsfield Street?

Each spring as they campaigned relentlessly for restoration and renewal their flowers would bloom and their street markets would begin again for the year. And this year, despite all the building works you’ve now seen, there will still be no interruption to these natural forces of nature. The flowers are blooming, even if many of them are having to be moved.

It will be held in Ducie Street, the only one of the 4 Streets not yet being worked on. And will take place on Saturday 4th April, Easter Saturday.

I’m sure I’ll be reminding you about the Street Market before then. And this blog will of course be back on the Four Streets whenever it needs to be. Granby 4 Streets, for so many reasons, being one of the most important things going on in Liverpool at the moment.

And one more thing?Next week, on Tuesday evening, 24th March is ‘What’s Your Granby Story?’ First of a series of discussions being run by local organisation ‘Writing on the Wall’ to gather up local stories and also start working on possibilities for the Community Land Trust’s next job, working out what would be the best uses for the four empty shop premises on the ‘Four Corners’ of Granby and Cairns Streets. Full details, times and place to meet here on the CLT website.