§ Mr. Parryasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the recent visit of the Minister of State to Liverpool.
§ Mr. John Stradling ThomasI visited Liverpool on 17 April and toured the site of the International Garden Festival which is to be opened by Her Majesty the Queen on 2 May. I had informative discussions with the chairman and senior officials of the Merseyside Development Corporation and others connected with the festival. I was most impressed by the remarkable transformation, in some two and a half years, of a formerly derelict area which is now the splendid site of the largest horticultural festival ever to be staged in Britain and the most important event of its kind in the world during 1984. When the festival ends in October, part of the site will become available for housing and light industrial development and much of it will remain as a superb public amenity for the people of the city.
My visit and discussions were valuable in the context of the Government's immediate interest in the success of the Liverpool festival and will be particularly helpful later this year when the Government consider and decide upon proposals for a national garden festival to be held in 1989, for which Swansea is a leading contender.