On Sunday Cllr Small tweeted:
(Note he had already restricted who could reply)
It was the last line that infuriated me, and others, “We need a new dispersal order”. Together with the suggestion in other tweets that young people should only be allowed to engage in “organised” and controlled activities, at a cost of course.
My response (below) earned me an immediate block from Cllr Small.
Scallymag had picked up the story, and alas their response got them blocked too. Cllr Small seems to have spent his Sunday evening blocking anyone who dared to disagree with his stance.
There was a lot of twitter traffic about it over the course of the following 24 hours, and I’m grateful to @ArmitageAndi and others for trying to get to the bottom of what the problems are at Mann Island.
Moving onto “Freedom Day” and on my way home from work I walked along the waterfront. As I got by the Museum of Liverpool I noticed the Merseyside Police Van parked up at Mann Island, three officers armed with their green pads were busy telling kids, and adults, that a Section 34 Dispersal Order was in place and they should move on. This was not true and there was no such Order at that time. If a Dispersal Order is in place it must be displayed in an obvious place or published in a local newspaper, none had been. In fact I contacted Merseyside Police to ask if an order had been issued. I still haven’t had a reply. I spoke to one of the officers and asked him for details of the Dispersal Order, he just walked away without answering.
What then transpired, apparently, is that (two hours before) complaints were made about youths playing on the inflatable installation in Dukes Dock and pushing children into the dock. A group of youths had run off towards the Arena and later a 17 year old was arrested on suspicion of carrying a knife. So that at 21:32, the Arena and Dukes Dock matters, and Cllr Small's call for action had been combined and the Police issued a Dispersal Notice for the entire waterfront area. Remember, this was over two hours after the officers were saying it was already in place.
The incident where a young man from Walton was arrested is unfortunately being mixed up with the issue of young people swmming in Dukes Dock, and with people using the Amphitheatre in Mann Island. The three matters are unconnected, but serve as a useful ploy for the Mann Island residents to get what they really want which is a ban on the public from using what they see as their private space.
Tuesday morning and as if on cue the Liverpool Echo have put their usual negative spin on events with an article entitled Yobs gatecrash aqua park accompanied by the usual replies of “feral youths” wandering the streets stabbing people.
Neither the Police nor the Echo ever mentioned a “stabbing” and to the best of my knowledge nobody was stabbed, but that doesn’t stop the image, conveniently, getting out that there was, and thus the draconian use of S34 Dispersal Orders is justified. The Echo haven’t investigated any of this btw, they just print what the Police want them to print and add a few sensationalist nouns into the mix for dramatic effect.
A wider question though is who actually owns and controls what we think of as OUR city. Mann Island – private. Albert Dock – private – Princes Dock and Parade – private. Canning and Salthouse Dock – private. Liverpool ONE – private. Just how much of the city have the council sold off? Under what conditions are We the People of Liverpool permitted to use these areas?
The council is currently spending huge sums of money, and causing months of disruption in remodeling The Strand and Lime Street, as part of this remodeling is the creation of large areas to allow events to take place. Are all these areas going to be subject to the same "conditions" in that we are only permitted to do what our modern day Lords of The Manor, in private apartment blocks, deem is acceptable.
What price do we put on Freedom? What price does Cllr Small?
