Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Birkenhead

What should be done to lift the general air of hopelessness that pervades Central Birkenhead? I drove through the other day and found it utterly depressing.

The council has tried several times to get the place going and each scheme has proved an expensive flop. Perhaps its time for the general public to take a hand and suggest something that might work.

Demolishing the whole place and starting again seems a not entirely unreasonable suggestion at times.

The same as every other town in the country, as you are well aware!

It's been going on for years, and deliberately managed IMO. Hoping for better things like investors to come and do it all for them. Well it didn't happen.
We heard so many might be, could be , will be, speals over the years and all pie in the sky. So many architectural plans, consultations and mountains of money poured down the ever guzzling drains.

First to go were the little electric buses from the centre to the ferry. The council had it in their grasp . A ferry from Liverpool to Birkenhead, could have bought in masses of revenue if the place had been kept in good order, which it wasn;t . How much was spent on Birkenhead park ?
If people visit they want to visit a nice place which is appealing and a nice experience. Sadly all the money thrown at Birkenhead was never going to do that because people sitting in places of decision making were not qualified enough to make them. So much waste . It was always the case that EU funding for tourism would dry up but council did not use their abilities to promote or sustain what could have been a busy and production town... and clean and inviting.

So now they want to develop Hoylake and take the problem away from Birkenhead. I wonder if the natterjack toads will be affected at Hoylake. One of very few sites in the UK. They probably will be, but what does that matter against a council hungry for recognition .

I hope to goodness this lot get voted out on Thursday, they've been at the helm for far too long and we need fresh blood and ideas.

I get really angry about it all.

I don't think much of Birkenhead's problems have be caused by the local council, it was the imposition by central Government that Birkenhead and Wallasey lost their independence, getting dragged out of Cheshire and put under the control of our rival Liverpool in the guise of a Metropolitan County.

Wirral's transport system prior to this was brilliant, our transport hub at Woodside worked really well. This was one of the first targets to be destroyed as part of a managed decline.

Wirral gets that which is left over, one of the best tall ships events was the first one which ended up primarily at Birkenhead docks because Liverpool didn't have docks big enough at the time.

Our docks have also been in managed destruction, other ports in the country are making the most of the waterside availability, we have had much of our docks filled in and there is now only one entrance which makes it a commercial risk - did that decision make any sense whatsoever?

The commercialisation and sell-off of the Merseyside Docks and Harbour board should never have been allowed but Liverpool and the Government knew the long term implication of this, more managed decline.

We should have been allowed to continue to compete with Liverpool on an open market basis, instead we have been made underlings.

One significant indication of how the Wirral has been purposely hampered is why there was never a station built by Woodchurch, its an obvious central point with space for parking ride etc.

Hm, the situation with the docks is rather annoying. Plenty of other cities have made good use of their historical dockland (Liverpool included) while ours is just wasted rotten space, now being sold off to the Peel Group.

No, Peel group have owned the docks (and a lot more) since 2005 when they "bought" Merseyside Docks and Harbour Company.

I think Birkenhead has been permanently in the doldrums. Certainly, as long as I can remember it has been a depressing place to wander around.

It gets worse when the country is economically on a downturn - usually when the conservatives are running things - but even at best it isn't doing well. Take a look at the amount of development going on in Liverpool. You can see this by looking at the number of construction cranes you can see there these days, or by looking at this map of development projects in the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1atchF4biejtix2gzucFcUNEE2A4&ll=53.40891173076168%2C-2.974962079197894&z=14

I don't know if the map doesn't cover Birkenhead or whether there isn't anything here to cover, but I can't think, offhand, of ANY development projects in Birkenhead.

Perhaps we should simply recognise it for what it is - a dormitory area for Liverpool - and turn it into as desirable one as possible. Abolish all industrial or commercial areas and turn the whole lot over to housing whilst improving transport links to Liverpool.

The same as Liverpool, Birkenhead has a lot of proposed developments, which means nothing. Then there are the numerous stalled developments in Liverpool which is causing uproar. A lot of Liverpool's developments have been student accommodation or other projects linked to the Universities.

Name another large TOWN that is dissimilar to Birkenhead? Every council is facing the same problems that we have in Wirral.

Stalled developments - especially Chinese ones - are everywhere. I've seen ones in Preston and Sheffield which have come to naught, or stopped mid way.