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One might also like to ask the people who now live in New Brighton whether they WANT to go back to the pre-war days or whether they like it as it is?

Often one finds a small vociferous group of enthusiast making a lot more noise than the rest of the population who are often far less enthusiastic. Were I to live there, the last thing I'd want is to have it turned into some kind of mini Blackpool..

As for starting a ferry boat service again, it may be worth recalling that the reason they were stopped was lack of customers. In other words the public didn't want them. I suggest that they probably wouldn't want them again if they were restarted.

I would be for making improvements that would benefit the current residents of the town and looking to the future rather than attempting to go back to a past that is often recalled as a hell of a lot better than it really was!

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Originally Posted by Excoriator
As for starting a ferry boat service again, it may be worth recalling that the reason they were stopped was lack of customers. In other words the public didn't want them


They were losing far less money than the buses or trains. The trains especially were very heavily publicly subsidised, if the ferries were proportionally subsidised to the same amount they would have been in profit.


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Originally Posted by mikeeb
Originally Posted by granny
They used to use it for the Wirral Show and other events such as the International Kite Festival but it could be utilised for so many things . Don;t give them ideas, Mikeeb.

They will not be getting any ideas from me.
I definitely don't want anything built on them, they are fine as they are, and great for events. Shame the Wirral Show doesn't happen anymore. Why did they stop it?

Those walls you mention are 'gabion walls' and very easy on the eye, good idea Granny. wink



It was organised by the Rotary initially, and it got bigger , so they called in help from the Lions Club, and I think the Round Table were inovled at some point . They decided in 2010 they couldn't do it any longer.


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Originally Posted by diggingdeeper
Originally Posted by Excoriator
As for starting a ferry boat service again, it may be worth recalling that the reason they were stopped was lack of customers. In other words the public didn't want them


They were losing far less money than the buses or trains. The trains especially were very heavily publicly subsidised, if the ferries were proportionally subsidised to the same amount they would have been in profit.


Wasn;t the silting up of the river partly responsible ? The ferries stopped first and then the pier went on fire and I think there were a few reasons. The new tunnel, more cars and probably another change with the new Liverpool landing stage which opened about 1975 (I think) , so things are always pre-pared well in advance and the bus terminus used to be a the Pier Head, so people could get on a bus from anywhere in the city, straight down to the Pier Head and hop on a ferry to New Brighton.
Admittedly , it was a pretty grim area when the bus terminus was there .

It always amazes me how many places go on fire , places that are to be exterminated anyway !?

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Wondering why some should think it needs to be turned into a mini Blackpool.

This isn't :

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After reading through all the previous comments and weighing up different arguments for what should or shouldn't be done, i'm personally torn between 'leave it alone' and 'regenerate it'

As a resident of the area all 31 years of my life, and as someone who lives very close to marine point & the dips i never look forward to the summer time when trying to drive home is impossible due to traffic, going for a walk along the front by harrison drive even more so and not to mention the joke of the roads near and around the dips full of 'tourists'. Likewise when the river of light thing happens, people come from far and wide and park across driveways because they don't want to walk a few more minutes.

With that being said, i would love for there to be more to do in the area. The wirral show was amazing, i wish they would bring that back! Marine point is fine, i have no problems with it, just do something with the casino space! An art gallery, a bigger lazer quest than the bowling alley's, hell even an indoor skatepark or something would be a great use of the space. It needs something to make people want to go there, not just another shop or fast food outlet.

One other use of the dips would be to have a local music festival once a year, kind of like Liverpool Sound City except all at one venue celebrating local musicians rather than across multiple venues. A mini radio one big weekend as it were. Maybe if radio 1 did want to do big weekend there, you can close the roads and have 3 stages or something, one on each 'dip'. Maybe even a beach football tournament by the fort.

I personally don't think that looking back is the way forward, punch & judy shows, little trains and stuff like that won't bring in any interest. You need things that will appeal to the upcoming generations, and things that will last the test of time. The target audience needs to be those below 50, ideally below 40 down to teenagers to make them return every year or two. It needs to be a long-term plan which involves something that will always be relevant. The casino space could even be turned into a VR hub where you can go and play computer games in immersive VR. Or even indoor football pitches (like the soccerdome) because people of all ages will want to go, from kids to adults through to older people to play walking football. Kids can then go get food afterward in the plethora of food places, adults can get a pint or six in the bars and everyone's happy. As for the area as a whole, it just needs to be 'pleasant' as has already been said, very long gone are the days of 'seaside holidays'. As a 31 year old, when i plan a holiday with my friends or my fiancee we don't think 'lets go to the seaside' (maybe because we live at one??) We instead look at city breaks in historic and nice cities (previous holidays include paris, prague, krakow, salzburg and london) and colleagues i work with either have the same opinion or go for a week in the sun. Nobody wants to spend time and money at a seaside town.

Therefore you have to bear grylls it; improvise, adapt, overcome. By that, i mean you don't want to target those to come here for a holiday or a prolonged trip, you want to target those who want to come for the day or a weekend. Give them just enough of a reason to come, but don't bore them when they get here. Possibly even highlight the fact you're a suburb of Liverpool. You can be in the city centre within half an hour by train but also you're away from the hustle and bustle and can relax in peace when you get back to the hotel, then in the morning you can have a wander round, take a walk along the prom to vale park and see the waterfront and get something to eat at vale park before going back over to Liverpool...

I'm by no means saying that this is 100% the way forward, but trying to sell new brighton as the place to go just won't cut it. There's no USP to the area and there won't ever be one, you just have to work with what you have and what we have is a lot of empty space, both in retail outlets and greenery, and a world famous, great city just over the water so we might as well embrace it and hang on to it's coat tails.

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Very insightful and well written J-demo,well done.

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Great ideas J-Demo, but you may have forgotten about young families and pensioners, local day trippers . Also the cost of policing big events, is astronomical and New Brighton (Wirral ) was classified years ago as a 'suburb of Liverpool' in the Liverpool Guide Brochure.
One of the reasons that tourism on Wirral folded , as Liverpool was promoting Liverpool.. and Wirral was side lined. New Brighton ended up with a supermarket on the main prom ! Lovely !

Who remembers the wonderful plans for some sort of gigantic thing in the middle of the Mersey , about 15 yrs ago or more ? That never came to anything , as mad as it was , but it would not have benefitted New Brighton, because the final intention was to have a viewing place on the Sefton coast.

I believe Liverpool have more plans afoot too , but Wirral being a cul-de-sac, makes everything so much harder.


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Have enjoyed reading the pros and cons for reinventing New Brighton. I was born and reared in Moreton and my husband in Wallasey but we have been living in the USA and New Zealand since 1969. Both of us have many happy memories of time spent in New Brighton doing all the things previous contributors have mentioned. About 20 years ago we were on a trip back to the UK and decided to visit New Brighton. The day we visited was beautiful and warm and sunny (it was July) but what a shock we got. The whole place had lost its buzz and was just a sterile empty place. We walked from the old Derby Baths as far as the Egremont Ferry and only saw two people. No families on the beach, nobody on the sea wall fishing, nobody in Vale Park, no children roller skating, skateboarding, scooting etc., just nothing happening at all. We took several photos to bring back with us as we knew our families here in NZ would find it hard to believe. The only thing we could say that was positive was that the River Mersey looked clean and there was no sign of rubbish around. Maybe things have changed since then but if I had been a stranger visiting I certainly wouldn't be thinking of going back. So, So sad.

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It was bleak 20 years ago Moretonkiwi but it isn't like that now. When it is sunny it is very busy. I find people would just like more to do than just have a flying visit for a couple of hours, then they would stay all day and spend more money.
I would love to see your pics from 20 years ago MK. wink

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Oh that is good to hear - maybe encourage people to walk and visit the various places of interest along the prom and have signs showing what can be seen across the Mersey in Liverpool. It is a good flat walk for pushchairs, wheelchairs etc and nothing is better than walking and breathing in good sea air. Maybe when the world has recovered from Covid-19 and it is safe to travel again I may be able to make another trip 'home'. Not sure if I still have the photos - will have a hunt and see what I find.

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