I HAVE a question to ask the bloke from Wirral Council who said on BBC Radio Merseyside earlier this week that Birkenhead is very well served by public transport.
What planet do you live on, mate?
I know the pen-pusher was only trying to create a bit of positive PR for the council’s meddling decision to introduce charges for parking in a designated Controlled Zone, but really, we all know that, actually, public transport is pants in Birkenhead.
By penalising motorists, the council wallies are simply trying to force local people to use the unpleasant and infrequent bus and rail services for reasons of bogus environmentalism.

Let me list the many reasons why public transport is such rubbish in Birkenhead and indeed all over the Wirral peninsula…
First of all that new bus station is the town centre is unpleasant and sweaty to be in. It’s like a greenhouse. Great for tropical plants, but useless as a bus station.
A bus station should have a cafeteria and ventilation and proper seating plus a newsstand and a sweet shop.
Then there’s the problem of the town centre bus stops keep having their positions changed, causing confusion.
The buses themselves are far too expensive to travel on – largely thanks to the disastrous deregulation and privatisation of the bus industry forced through by the previous idiotic Conservative Government.
And because the buses are so expensive and charmless to ride on (compared to the old-style bus with its conductor, chatty passengers and shining chrome handle rails) comparatively few people bother – preferring to drive, cycle or walk.
Anything’s better than boarding one of the miserable modern buses with their crap automatic gears and lurching, lumbering motion.
And what of the Mersey Ferries? Well I hardly think they can truthfully be called “ferries” any more. The actual ferry service is severely restricted to peak hours.
The rest of the time, an unsuspecting passenger might board in, say Seacombe, wanting simply to cross the Liverpool, only to find himself hauled halfway to Runcorn on an industrial heritage tour of staggering dullness.
I’d love to see a proper ferry service restored. I’d love to see ferries stopping at New Brighton once more.
As for the local railways – they are truly pathetic – and much worse than they were nearly a century ago.
Honestly, I’ve checked the old timetables and the scheduled services between, for instance, New Brighton and Liverpool, were much more frequent and actually faster more than 80 YEARS AGO!
Also, rail, services through Wirral are these days regularly cancelled and replaced by inadequate bus services.
That is supposedly so that improvements to the track can be made, but why can’t that work be done through the night and completed much sooner?
Instead, the authorities have just announced another series of massive disruptions to services.
Also, the Merseyrail carriages are ridiculously overheated, harshly lit, travel at frustratingly slow speeds, and are full of impertinent notices which imply that passengers are dirty, anti-social louts who put their feet on seats and will pull a knife on a ticket collector at the slightest provocation.
And I feel it is outrageous that our local trains ban people drinking alcohol. Why shouldn’t rail passengers have a drink on their journey? Sensible rail operators provide on-board bars and licensed station buffets for passengers, as well as nice clean toilets.
Merseyrail prefers to invest in CCTV cameras to spy on its passengers and in plastering the urban landscape with ugly, garish yellow, corporate identity markers.
That’s no way to run a railway. Rail travel should be comfortable, speedy, enjoyable, glamorous even.
And rail operators have to treat their passengers with respect rather than regard them all as potential thugs and fare-dodgers.
If the railway people refuse to treat passengers with respect then the passengers will end up hating the railways. In fact, I think that has already started to happen.
But still, even though the public transport options are mediocre to say the least, Wirral Council wants its citizens to forsake their cars and use what is provided publicly.
That’s why they’ve brought in parking fees and the resulting fines. And it means, of course, that the council can employ yet more people in unnecessary jobs.
You’ll soon notice an increase in parking Stasi in their silly uniforms, goose-stepping around the centre of the one-eyed city.
It is rumoured they are planning a joint Christmas party with the nosey-parkers who spy on us through CCTV cameras.
Oh aye, and while they’re at it, they might just invite along the crypto-fascist types who will be recruited to be the sinister voice of Big Brother behind those planning talking spy cameras.
The parking nerds might also invite to the festive knees-up those resident social workers that Wirral Council is planning to billet with anti-social families in new Sin Bin residential units.
What a fun party that would be.

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