LETTER : City of Liverpool is not a lost cause

From Professor Phil Redmond

Sir: Tony Bell, "Speaker's Corner: the misery of Mersey" (15 February) gave some interesting home truths about Liverpool. No doubt you will receive correspondence from supporters of many of the fine initiatives in the city, but my concern is to take issue with his silly and unnecessary snide remarks about myself and Brookside. While I do not mind anyone disagreeing with, or even not liking anything I do, his derogatory conclusion that Liverpool is now best known for "Brookside and child murder" is, well, daft. It also negated the value of the argument.

Liverpool's past, present and future issues are tied more to the harsh realities of economics than any works of fiction, music or sport. The only contribution Mr Bell's piece made to the debate is to reinforce the view that any city is only a collection of differing opinions and any so-called cohesive strategy has to recognise that fact.

Mr Bell himself laboured the point about the past glories of the Beatles and football but conveniently forgets that many people then, and now, put them on a similar level as he obviously puts Brookside. However, for the past 12 years Brookside has permanently employed 200 people - in Liverpool. When did John, Paul, George and Ringo do that?

As for football: the only conclusion to be drawn from Mr Bell's lament for the decline in football's prominence and former glory must come from an Evertonian!

Yours,

PHIL REDMOND

Chairman

Brookside Productions Ltd

Liverpool