The "Silver City Report" of the 1970s

[aek-94]

This is a bit of an old article, and probably more to do the 'Liverpool City Region' than anything else, but has anyone heard of the plan below - the 'Silver City' plan? A plan to create a new city out of Widnes, Runcorn, and Warrington so that it could grow into an expanding Liverpool and Manchester to create one large new North-western super-city?

Is it to do with the new town developments in Warrington and Runcorn? Because if it isn't I can't find anything about it anywhere..

The Laz Word: Kilfoyle's world domination plan

... or do the people of Warrington and Chester really want to be ruled by a mayor in Liverpool?
Published on November 9th 2009.

IN the 1970s, a highly controversial report was produced detailing the creation of a new city sandwiched between Liverpool and Manchester. It was given the code name Silver City.

The authors of that report most certainly didn’t strike gold. Their doomed theory was the land between the two great North West rivals would eventually become one big urban sprawl as Liverpool spread its wings east and Manchester towards the west, What was needed was something in the middle – a wooleyback city based on Widnes, Runcorn and Warrington.

There was some logic to the idea. Thousands of Liverpudlians had gone to live in exile in the Warrington suburbs of Penketh and Sankey, thousands more were lured to Runcorn New Town and to the Upton Overspill estates in Widnes. Meanwhile Mancunians were heading west in their covered wagons for the prairie lands around Birchwood in Warrington.

There are still wide open spaces between Liverpool and Manchester, a greenbelt where tractors and combined harvesters have yet to be driven out by 4 X4 people carriers and new-build estates of semis.

Read more at - Manchester Confidential