THING OF THE WEEK

BARBIECORE… This week saw some good news – or bad depending on how you view these things – for Liverpool’s entertainment scene. Tonight Josephine, a cocktail bar famed for its “hot pink Barbiecore aesthetic”, is due to open on Hanover Street on 21 October. The venue will boast a “trendy wild-wild west theme” and is named after French empress Joséphine Bonaparte, who allegedly once said that “well-behaved women don’t make history”. However, a quick Google suggests historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich was the first to utter that particular phrase.  

Credit: via planning documents

NO-GO… While one Liverpool venue gears up for opening, plans for another have been knocked back. A snazzy-looking events space proposed on land next to the iconic Cains Brewery Village has been refused planning permission by the city council. The 18,000 sq ft scheme, put forward by Baltic Entertainment and modelled on Shoreditch’s popular Boxpark, would have seen part of a pay and display car park on Stanhope Street transformed into a 600-capacity events space made of shipping containers. Alas, the city council’s concerns about the impact the project would have on nearby roads mean the project has hit the buffers. 

Cllr David Meller was incensed by the decision Credit: Place North West

POLITICS… After pulling out of the GMSF two years ago, Stockport has delayed its local plan, too. The decision, made amid concerns over central government uncertainty, has enraged Stockport’s Labour politicians. Cllr David Meller, shadow cabinet member for regeneration, said the decision “makes the council look like a laughing stock”.

“We have a zombie government in Westminster and a walking dead administration in Stockport Town Hall. It’s just not good enough,” he said.

Cllr Mark Hunter, the Liberal Democrat leader who took over from Labour’s Elsie Wilson as head of the council in May, told Place back then that one of his main priorities was “getting the boosters under the local plan”. Those boosters, for now at least, seem to have failed. 

The Mark Addy was damaged by floods in 2015. Credit: via archive

PONTOON… A 25-metre pontoon to be used by Manchester River Cruises is to be installed in the River Irwell opposite the Mark Addy. Forlorn and overwhelmed by buddleia after a devastating flood in 2015, one can’t help but think that the Mark Addy would make an ideal pontoon – the pub, after all, was built on the site of a former boat landing stage. In any case, surely it is time someone came up with an imaginative reuse for the pub – Place reported in 2016 that plans for the site were being drawn up, but that is the last we heard. 

Credit: Flickr user isox4 via CC BY 2.0 bit.ly/3RrZHfu

SPLISH SPLASH… The Victoria Baths will return to their historic swimming pool status for just three days this year. United Utilities will be filling the grade two star-listed pool with water for three days’ worth of events. Money from tickets sold for the Big Splash at Victoria Baths will go towards maintaining the building and keeping it as a community space. The fun begins with two open swims combined with a post-swim, three-course, plant-based dinner on 9 September. Learn more about the festivities at the fundraiser’s Eventbrite site.

Imagine if we rebuilt them all. pic.twitter.com/ZN4y9U4EM8

— Paul Smith (@Paul_SLG) August 29, 2022

SHADOWLANDS… Paul Smith, managing director at Strategic Land Group, provided us with a blast from the past this week. He shared an image of a map depicting the locations of all of the deserted medieval villages in England. The image, taken from Matthew Green’s book Shadowlands, shows a solid spread of villages from southern, central and up to the east of the country, but only a paltry smattering in the North West – there seems to be precisely zero deserted medieval villages in Lancashire, for example. Whether there were never many villages in this part of the world to desert, or if those dwelling in the North West were just more resistant to the plague, remains unclear.