Welcome to Wirral - what's left of it!
IF YOU drive through the Wallasey Tunnel from Liverpool you are greeted on the other side by a huge banner sign saying: "Welcome to Wirral: please drive carefully."
How dull. How boring. How utterly lacking in ambition and imagination.
And how appropriate for a borough such as Wirral - where everything that used to be bold, brash or beautiful has been diminished or demolished over the past 35 years by an overblown municipality.
Yes, folks, things have steadily gone downhill since 1974, when great clunking Death Star that is Wirral Council replaced a group of smaller and perfectly functional town councils, including historic county boroughs with their own police and education services, such as Birkenhead and Wallasey.
It was the same piece of hateful, hurtful local government reform in '74 that attempted to wipe out people's cultural identity on both banks of the Mersey - as proud people of Lancashire and Cheshire - by inventing a county with the ugly name of Merseyside (now thankfully consigned to the dustbin of history).
Wallasey, which includes New Brighton, has seen decline on a truly spectacular scale. Since Wirral Council took over, Wallasey has lost: its college of further education; its stately home Liscard Hall (allowed to fall apart, burn down and then be demolished); the magnificent open air bathing pool in New Brighton; loads of hotels and pubs; its shopping centre (Liscard is now a joke as a shopping centre, it hasn't even got a bookshop).
Also: Wallasey no longer has a cinema; its hospital, Victoria Central, has been demoted to a place which does little more than treat minor scratches and burns; and the police station is barely operational compared to how it used to be buzzing thirty-odd years ago. Pathetic!
I'm not saying everything is Wirral Council's fault but while it has been in existence - despised by the public and representing no particular local community - one landmark building and facility after another has disappeared, to be replaced with mean-spirited blocks of bug-hutch flats everywhere.
Now Wirral Council is really turning the screw on its communities, wanting to shut down:14 of the borough's 24 libraries; three leisure centres (including swimming facilities serving some of the most deprived urban areas in Britain); two museums and a theatre.
The council also wants to "transfer" 20 village halls and community halls into the hands of unpaid volunteers.
It's a proposed slaughter of civic amenities and heritage that's being driven forward under the sinister doublespeak title of Transforming Wirral.
Of course, the ultra-defensive council points to the rebuilt Floral Pavilion in New Brighton as evidence of its determination to modernize assets.
But, as was obvious on recent local television news programmes, the new Floral has been created in the corporate, soulless style so beloved of civic pen-pushers. It has none of the character of the old, demolished, Floral.
The front brickwork of the new theatre and so-called conference centre is already stained and shabby looking - and the place has only been open a few weeks!
And here's another unfortunate fact to consider... The Floral's new auditorium - currently hosting a panto with actors no-one's heard of and no-marks from moronic local radio - is actually SMALLER in terms of seating capacity than the one it replaced! So much for the bright new future on offer...
All of which brings me back to the big sign that greets people entering the peninsula from the Wallasey tunnel.
I think the wording should be changed to reflect the awful reality of what's happened to the place under Wirral Council misrule. I suggest it should read...
"WIRRAL - you're welcome to it!"
Older/Newer
« For humanity, there is always hope | Here's one Ka Ka on the move »
6 Comments
Profile
Steve Regan - Steve Regan is a writer who also runs the Bards of New Brighton poetry and music club, which meets at the Magazine pub, New Brighton, on the second Monday of every month. starting at 8pm. Free admission
Happy New Year Steve!
To be fair to the council, by 1974 Britain's once might industrial base was already in steep decline, between incompetent management, a militant workforce and globalisation providing cheap competition.
Now even the few remnants of industry in Wirral that remain such as Vauxhall in Elesemere Port, Burtons and Typhoo in Moreton, and Unilever in Port Sunlight are either threatened with closure or cutting back staff.
When you look around at the huge decaying buildings once occupied by people like Mobil Oil and Rank Hovis McDougal, even Berwick games, you can see that the area must have been much wealthier at one time.
And of course cheap flights to Spain killed off the fortunes of New Brighton.
All of these things are pretty much outwith the control of even the most competent council, and it must be a tough job balancing the books with so many people on benefits (who don't pay council tax and receive housing benefit) and so little industry to pay for it all.
Even the poorest, most run down London Boroughs have a good pecentage of the population who commute to central London and therefore can afford to pay their council tax. There isn't anywhere as booming as Central London in commutable distance from Wirral, And the density of population in London gives economy of scale to things like emptying the bins.
I always like to put the world to rights, but I've no idea what I'd do differently if I were in charge of Wirral council!
REGAN REPLIED: Happy New Year, Newbie. Well thought-out analysis as usual from ye.
You forgot the municipal bus undertaking. Wallasey had one of those of its own when it was a county borough ... in the days befiore bus services turned into complete crap.
New Brighton newbie refers to 1974 as a year of the beginning of the industrial decline. I think it was earlier but never mind. What i would like to know is how many people were employed by the council in 1974, compared with the numbers today? I believe more is spent on salaries than on services with all the non-jobs that have been created. With the freedom of information act these figures should be available, but like MP's expense figures are hard to get hold of. Does anyone have any ideas. ???
On a lighter note:
Young guy fresh out of university applies for a position with the local Council,
at the interview he is shown a bathtub full of water, a teaspoon, a teacup, and a bucket he is then asked how he would go about emptying the bathtub. He quickly replies he would use the bucket because it holds a larger volume of water so would complete the task in good time.
Fine said the interviewer you have got the job, as i liked your reasoning and approach to the problem. I think you will fit in very well here.
Oh by the way most normal people would have just pulled the plug out.
Thanks, Jack and Jules. I think we all know that the numbers of people in publicly-financed employment on the Wirral is now ENORMOUS - and for very little benefit to the communities that live on the peninsula. I would estimate that in Merseyside generally some 65 to 70 per cent of the population get their income from the State - either in wages or in benefits. No wonder nothing seems to work properly any more!
Steve - I agree, the "local" goverment has done its best to wreck the Wirral and it infuriates me that we have the bear the cost of this clunking, inefficient, lumbering and short termist behemoth. For my part, as my split heritage suggests, I will always love the place and have finally given up my atavistic longings to return to Wales and want to die here. The beauty of its remaining countryside, its sea-girt coast and the oft unlooked for views to Snowdonia and North Wales on the Dee Estuary never fail to move me. We're a great Peninsula because (most of us) cling to our own distinction from Liverpool and are proud to stand apart from them (although we shouldn't scorn). There are still little pockets of light gleaming on the Wirral and people holding torches and there are still the people I've known all my life and have become acquainted with in recent years. There is still culture. There is still hope.
Cilgwri am byth!
Jack and Jules - to clarify I said "BY 1974 Britain's once might industrial base was already in steep decline" i.e. it was already underway by then.
I should also clarify that I wasn't suggesting that Wirral council couldn't be more efficiently run (although my dealings with both the local council and the NHS in Wirral have been far more efficient than those with London councils / NHS), I was merely stating that they have a tough job as councils depend on local industry to balance the books.
I think Wirral is probably worse than Scotland where over 60% of the population work for the state.
It's not sustainable long term, but then if you throw all these people on the dole, then aside from retail workers most of Wirral would be unemployed. Would we be any better off?
The problem is that if you're not a salesman or do something that requires a physical presence, then increasingly someone in a developing country can do your job for 7p an hour!
Until conditions in the developing world are improved, developed countries will continue in economic decline.