• Page 1: An alarming report from the City Planning Department says Liverpool will be short of 50,000 homes by 1980. The report has not been submitted to the council and appears to have been suppressed because it challenges the council's house-building plans.

The council is expecting a surplus of 14,000 homes by 1980 and has cut spending accordingly. If the Planning Department is right, it will need to spend a lot more.

• On page 3, Realmdeal Investments, one of the city's largest slum landlords, makes the first of many appearances in the Free Press. The company is trying to get rid of elderly tenants on low rents and turn the properties into more lucrative student accommodation.

It has sent tenants a letter suggesting they might like to move out because students can be noisy and "become strained and temperamental" at exam time.

Page 8 has a report on job losses at the Fisher Bendix factory in Kirkby. The factory, which made washing machines, stainless steel sinks and central heating radiators, had gone through several changes of ownership. Under its latest owner, Thorn Electrical, it was clearly heading downhill and when the company announced its closure in January 1972 the workers occupied the factory. This became a long-running story and led to a government-backed experiment in workers' control where the workforce were given a grant to run the factory themselves — though it eventually failed.

• An influential pressure group "drawn from the ranks of the Conservative and Labour parties in Liverpool, the Liverpool Echo, the Corporation's public relations office and industry" the city's Speke airport. On page 5, the Free Press describes the plans as "against all economic and environmental reality". The airport is losing money, with local ratepayers footing the bill. Expanding it will cost them even more.

• On pages 6 and 7 the Free Press takes a detailed look at the government's White Paper, "A Fair Deal for Housing", and suggests its effects will be anything but fair: rents are going to go up.

• The second extract from The Little Red Schoolbook is on page 8. This one takes a critical look at teachers: "Many teachers have never done anything apart from teaching. As a result they may not know much about life outside school."

• Sculptor Arthur Dooley made a point of refusing to fill in his census form and now he has been told he will be prosecuted (page 4). Failing to fill in the form is punishable by a £50 fine.

• The Catholic Pictorial newspaper has criticised the Free Press for not naming the priest who wrote an article about church fundraising (issue 1, page 8). The Free Press responds that the Catholic Pictorial often publishes readers' letters anonymously (page 6).

• The Bold Street Traders Association has got up a petition against the Virgin record shop, claiming it lowers the tone of the street (page 10).

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