There have been plenty of housing schemes that pleased the planners far more than those who had to live in them and were knocked down after just a few decades. However there was one development which is passed by thousands of motorists every day where the residents were more than happy to see it saved when it was nearly demolished just four years after completion.
The Green, situated between Broadgreen Road and Queens Drive near the end of the M62, was a development of flats by Liverpool Corporation completed in 1965. Large, low rise and in not too densely populated an area, they were popular with those who lived there but soon they were under threat as the Ministry of Transport pressed ahead with plans for the M62 motorway. This route from Liverpool to Manchester and beyond was seen as necessary due to the East Lancashire Road’s inability to cope with increasing traffic levels.
The motorway was initially intended to continue as far as Edge Hill, where it would narrow to two lanes which would link it with the inner ring road system at Islington. This meant that The Green may need to make way for the motorway, but on 3rd June 1969 the Liverpool Echo reported that the flats would not need to make way for the scheme. A spokesman from the traffic route engineering section told the paper ‘If the motorway goes through as proposed these flats won’t be affected physically. There will be a flyover carrying Queens Drive but we feel, as does the housing department, that it is far enough away from the flats.’
That news was a relief to the residents of The Green but local Liberal Party member Roger Johnston still expressed some reservations due to traffic noise. He said ‘I hope the Corporation will consider putting in double glazing on these flats, this should be a necessity.’ in the end though the residents needn’t have worried as the M62 was never extended into the city, instead terminating at Queens Drive,or ‘The Rocket.’ The original plans explain why the motorway starts at junction 4, as 1,2 and 3 were always intended to be added later.
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