Hi All,

The fields at the back of the Mosslands school have been taken over by nature over the past 30 years. When i was a wee nipper these fields where sports fields for the school. (Its Rumored) A housing development on cross lane in the 90's caused problems with the water table and now once a year the field turns in to a bit of a marshland in places.It is a wonderful field full of life and nature. The noise of the creatures and birds is glorious.

However... the owner of West Wallasey van hire wants to pour concrete over it all and create a road from the main office to the fields so that they can store more commercial vehicles. The blue in the photo is his current holdings and the red are his proposed. The area has been designated as an area of green space but for some reason the council are still trying to sell this land, it isn't theirs to sell it is ours. Please sign the petition to stop this from happening.

Petition to stop the carpark

Secondly, we must keep fighting to keep Wirrals green spaces.
https://www.facebook.com/Defend-Wirrals-Green-Spaces-1070090656488873/

Good grief, haven't they got enough vans parked around the place already? I bet the local residents would rather look out on what they have now, than on a blinding white vista of vans. This pressure on land is a constant problem and will only get worse - one person's underused waste ground is another person's wildlife haven.

They just need to plant some trees instead of diesel vans!

The laughable part is one part of the council is meeting to designate the area as a green space and another faction are negotiating a sell off to West Wallasey, not much detail as of yet, we have lots of wildlife on there to protect, please sign.

How many vans do they need? They already have too many in their current yard.
If it is just for storage, surely they could find a more suitable place.

Apparently West Wallasey have said they will provide an all weather pitch on Wallacre field as a sweetener, the council have just awarded £375,000 council tax money toward an all weather pitch for Tranmere Rovers, yet our services were threatened for lack of funding and a 5% council tax rise, something not quite right.

Can I just comment - they are a very successful local business and employ many locals - so an expansion could be 'good' news on that front.

Despite being former playing fields - not in Green Belt and would be designated Brownfield - not good, but this is the battle

To all intents and purposes it would be used for storing vehicles, they WW already have three sites adjacent I doubt they will provide 300 more jobs to run an extra parking facility, the jobs they are talking about would be short term construction jobs, It has not been designated as anything yet to my knowledge, my point is if they were to lease / sell it to WW and allegedly get an all weather playing field paid for and maintained by WW why have they bunged Tranmere Rovers £375,000 for another pitch close by?

Wirral Council reject the sale of Mosslands School playing field to West Wallasey van hire.

The meeting of Wirral Council’s Economy and Regeneration Committee unanimously rejected the proposal to sell the land for £150,000, amid concerns over flooding and building on green space.

The land had been partly used by The Mosslands School as its playing fields, but has not been used in this way for decades as it suffers from flooding.

This is very good news.
https://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/...ect-sale-mosslands-school-playing-field/

We need as much business as we can get hold off in Wirral, the new Council funding that is being brought in is going to be more dependent on Business Rates, we have a lack of businesses/jobs compared to our population. Being the suburbs/commuter-belt for Liverpool is a financial model that will not be sustainable.

Currently the Council keep half the business rates and the other half goes to the Government, where theoretically some of it is divided up to pass back as funding and grants to Councils and Government projects to even up the differences between industrialised and non-industrialised areas. The new model is that the Council keep 100% of its own business rates and receive less funding from the common purse. Councils with large amounts of business rates are going to do very well, Councils like Wirral that have disproportionately small amounts of business rates are going to have massive cuts in funding.

We have the adjacent green spaces at Cross Lane, Bidston Moss and Pride Park which are grossly underutilised and vastly larger than this plot of land that is currently nothing but waste. We can't keep returning land to nature unless we are prepared to drastically reduce the size of the population and/or start building more on green belt.

We are at this moment in time, entering a critical period where we should in every case possible, be working with nature rather than against it. The difference in the wildlife these days is greatly noticeable including the little creatures that hide in the undergrowth in the day and play at night. How often does one see a moth fluttering against a window ? They used to be all over the place at one time. Each creature has a vital roll to play in sustaining the eco system. Nextdoor neigbours found a load of dead bumble bees in their garden this year. Without them.... we are all doomed. Some nest in the ground (along with many other creatures) which is why in the spring, they appear on the grass.

This field floods and throwing a load of tarmac over it will compound the issue even more.
Plus there is plenty of brownfield sites that are not being used.

Well said granny, we live adjacent to this site and it abounds with wildlife, I take the grand dog around for a walk now and again, herons, geese, ducks, kestral plus all the tiny critters that we don't see.

This is a brownfield site, it hasn't been an agricultural site for some time now, traditionally it has been allotments since before 1850, the existing small plot of allotments will remain.

As far as the car park drainage goes, the drainage will be designed and has to pass planning permission, building regs, environmental regs etc, they are not allowed to let it wash off. Having a closed landfill next to it will further tighten the drainage requirements. As part of this of this project, the existing drainage of the rugby and football fields will be upgraded improving the quality of their pitches.

The existing access paths on this land (one to the sports grounds and one to the Cross Lane green area), these will be maintained, noting that only one of them is currently a right of way, that to the sports ground from Mosslands Drive.

Name another site that can be used by Wallasey Van Hire, its a very broad statement saying that other brownfield sites are available - just because something exists does not mean it is available. This will be an extension to their existing main site.

You can't just carry on saying no to every change, that is how a stalemate happens and genuine green belt ends up as being depleted.

I don't see many people moving into the smallest footprint property they can to preserve nature, one rule for them and another rule for others.

I guess one of the alternatives is a multi-story car park on their existing land but that would utilise large amounts of concrete which is one of the most (probably the most) destructive building materials we produce in bulk.

How is this a brownfield site?
As far as I'm aware, there has been no building on this site.

In my simplistic world:- when it was football pitches It was not greenfield, domestic, agricultural or public, it was developed for commercial use which now it is disused makes it brownfield? Basically it is land that has been developed in the past for non-agricultural use.

There are a number of definitions of brownfield. Some merely state land that has previously been developed, some add that a structure has to have been present, some state that there has to be a risk of contamination being present.

I would argue that a football field is a structure as it is recognisable, created by man to a design, not a natural feature and materials are used to construct it, especially when you consider drainage systems etc.

I would also argue that being immediately next to an old rubbish tip it would be reasonable to assume there is a risk of contamination being present, not to mention the old pesticides and other chemicals that may have been used over the 100 years (or whatever) it was allotment gardens dating back before 1850 when elf and safe-tea and identification of contaminants wasn't an issue. There is also a risk that asbestos sheds may have been used on the allotments. I certainly wouldn't certify it as contamination free without inspection and testing with those two histories.

I still wouldn't class it as brownfield though. You get football fields in parks, I don't think that makes that part of the park brownfield? And as far as I know, allotments don't make it brownfield either.

Regarding other sites available, there are huge swathes of land on the old Bidston Dock and Wallasey Bridge Road. There is also that huge dump on Cleveland Street. However, I don't know if they are available.

Bidston Dock area is owned by Peel Holdings (or whatever today's name is), they will not sell and the outline usage of that land has already been designated, some clearance work took place not long ago.

The dump on the corner of Cavendish Street and Cleveland Street is in the middle of legal controversy, unless the buyer would be willing to take on blanket legal liability I can't see it going anywhere. Though I'm sure the Council would be willing to oil the works for that plot of land as currently it is a thorn in their side. Although the site does meet the correct planning designation, it is prime industrial land being approved for B2 and B8 categories and will be priced appropriately, it was bought W & J Kern Properties around three years ago.

I should correct that, W & J Kern Properties took possession three years ago, they already owned it for a number of years before (at least prior to 2008) and it was leased to the previous company Eco Recycling (NW) Ltd

Well after a second meeting and all due consideration, the land will not be sold to West Wallasey, or should I say gifted at that price?

The use of the fields as a football and cricket pitch were for the sole use of Mosslands school via WBC so not a designated public playing field.

Thanks to all those that signed the petition, and those that also used a dedicated site to highlight the possible sale and misuse of this land.

The next move could be West Wallasey putting in outline planning permission for the current rugby and football club's pitches with a view of using that land for their storage and re-develop the Mosslands pitches for the rugby and football clubs. That would be much harder to prevent happening and is probably cheaper for them in the long term.

Or perhaps they will move away from the Wirral taking jobs with them.

Can't see that happening DD, they already monopolise the majority of the Cross Lane site, I believe all the Jobs that they promised would have be short term, preparing the parking site, most of the jobs are administration on that site, the delivery drivers unload the cars and park them up, the office on Leasowe Road deals with the Hire part of the business, so not a lot of scope for creating jobs.

Good !

Why does it have to be in Wallasey anyway ? Plenty of brown sites in other areas of Wirral, as there's a West Wallasey hire place at Sparks Lane, Pensby.

The more vans they have, the more drivers they need, the more valets they need, the more repairs and servicing they need. There's a bit more to it than shiny-rsez shuffling papers and sharpening quills, there's a whole infra-structure behind it.



As I asked earlier, where are these available brown sites, anything that is owned by Peel Holdings isn't up for grabs. Any land that can be developed for industry or housing is going to be priced as such but the biggest problem is the price of develop-able land is going up, people won't sell or long-term lease their investment. There's worse things to live next to than rental storage, you just have to put up with the sound of catalytic converts getting sawn off at night.

The old John Howarth site at Sparks lane, that's got very little storage, its basically a pick-up and drop-off site with a workshop, the vans are shuffled in and out. There is a very small plot of land beside it but I think I remember there's some sort of planning aggro/embargo.

They lease the vans or hire them out, so they don't require driver's for every van, as far as I can gather it was just going to be a giant storage facility, vans dropped off or picked up by car transporter,easily organised by two people.

I'd love to see a car transporter move vans.

West Wallasey have over 300 staff, It works out at very roughly 50 vehicles per member of staff.

[quote=diggingdeeper]I'd love to see a car transporter move vans.

West Wallasey have over 30years
0 staff, It works out at very roughly 50 vehicles per member of staff.

I am talking the small commercial type vans, they appear to be the majority type of vehicle they have stored at the moment, the larger type vans are the ones in daily use as hire vehicles along with a small fleet of cars, from what I can gather vehicles, will be delivered and picked up to take to other locations, skin to a vehicle staging area.

You see them on the motorway many times.

Loads more images here.
http://www.murrayhogg.co.uk/index.php/loading-a-vehicle