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Wirral Thread

638K views 5K replies 250 participants last post by  Howie_P 
#1 ·
I think the Wirral thread has gone for the second time :eek:hno:

Spotted this application yesterday for planning permission on the gates of Fishermans Wharf (see last pic). Can't believe Wirral Council have set their sights so low (no pun intended). I posted a few pics of this area last year under the thread Prime Real Estate

Anyway, I followed the instructions on the application and it took me to this page


 
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#2,109 ·
Went into a vintage tea room today on this row in New Brighton ( posted pic a couple of weeks ago -above). My parents have been visiting:



It's called 'Remember When' and has been open about 10 weeks now. Sells afternoon tea and various vintage home-ware items - and is great to take parents/ older visitors to, or anyone who likes vintage:



 
#2,111 ·
Stunning images of Ellesmere Port's new £15m sport and leisure complex released

Artist impressions of Ellesmere Port’s new £15m sport and leisure complex on Stanney Lane have been unveiled.

Provided by Cheshire-based Ellis Williams Architects, they give a glimpse of the 6,000sq m facilities which will replace the ageing EPIC. Plans for a replacement sports centre for the town date back to the previous borough council.

The Cheshire West and Chester Council project, co-funded by the Sports Council, is part of a £70m investment in leisure facilities across the new borough.

The development at the former Stanney High School includes a 25m eight lane swimming pool, a learner pool, an eight court sports hall with seating for 1,400 spectators, a fitness suite, a community room, dance and exercise studios and a cafe.

Describing the facilities as ‘state of the art’, the architects emphasised the sports hall had been designed to national basketball league standards.

http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/n...s/stunning-images-ellesmere-ports-new-8857664
 
#2,115 ·
Luxury apartment plan for historic buildings
Posted by Stephen Hurrell

Historic Grade I listed buildings in Wirral’s Hamilton Square will be converted into luxury apartments after the sale of the buildings were completed.

Goodman Wells purchased the two five-storey buildings through property consultant Smith and Sons and plans are underway to renovate them for residential purposes. They will join four other buildings in the square currently being converted into apartments.

Jason Wadeson, partner at Smith and Sons, says: “These buildings around the square are stunning architecturally and being in such a great location, provide developers with the opportunity to create some incredibly appealing homes.”

Refurbishment of two of the Hamilton Square buildings bought by Goodman Wells, including the former NatWest bank, have been converted into apartments and are already being let to tenants.

Paul Burgess, director at Goodman Wells, says: “We’re pleased to secure two more purchases at the historic Hamilton Square where we are currently developing six buildings in total.

“Across all of our projects, we endeavour to protect and restore the important listed features of each building, taking them back to their former glory whilst enhancing the interior in line with modern living standards.”
 
#2,116 ·
The Tesco Home Plus store in Bromborough will be closing permanently at the end of June according to reports in the Wirral Globe.
Probably comes as a surprise to some and will leave a sizeable hole on the Croft Retail Park. With M&S due to open a Simply Food next door, I wonder what will be next for the empty Tesco...


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#2,118 ·
It shows everything you need to know about the utter knuckle dragging `just dont get it ` incompetence of Wirral Council that they would rather spend money redeveloping an area whose defining characteristic is the slightly fishy smelling Europa Pools and Birkenhead Bloody Market, rather than using the most potentially massive and woefully underused asset the Wirral has, which is its waterfront views of Liverpool.
 
#2,119 ·
there are some pretty nice views from the newly opened river park..
Some of the best views are from Wirral Waters mostly owned by Peel..

Agree that knocking Europa Pools down and rebuilding it is a waste. Birkenhead Market is awful, it could be a lot better with some creativity.
 
#2,121 ·
The Marine Point apartments in New Brighton are nearing completion, and don't look too bad at all. They feature a glass covered blacony, which can be opened up in summer.

Also a new cafe has opened next to the tea room I posted pictures of a while back. New Brighton is starting to realise some of its potential - once more:




 
#2,122 ·
I agree they look good.

What do people think about replacing the Wirral thread with threads specific to the actual towns and communities? So there could be Wallasey, Birkenhead and Upton, Hoylake & West Kirby, Heswall and Thingwall, Bromborough and Bebington, Neston, and Ellesmere Port threads? I dont feel comfortable contributing to a "Wirral" thread as its such a politically loaded and divisive name, not to mention tainted by its failed local authority. Its also a bit insulting to the historic Greater Liverpool towns on the peninsula. What do others think?

As far as I know, there isnt a "Sefton" thread.
 
#2,129 ·
I must admit I found it a little awkward posting about New Brighton on a Wirral thread though. The Wirral is so diverse - and to me New Brighton is so obviously part of the Liverpool City Region.

I'm sure there's loads going on in The Wirral....? Maybe not towers and stuff - but still, lots of other stuff?
 
#2,134 ·
What would you say The Wirral identity was? What is it based upon? Is it just geographical? The fact of being separated and surrounded by water. Of course, it was traditionally Cheshire.
I was born in Heswall, and have lived in Pensby and Bromborough. I also attended Wirral Grammar School, and I have to say that I'm not sure what the identity revolves around other than 'not being' Liverpool or Chester. The Wirral is so diverse.
 
#2,136 ·
I think that's exactly it, to be honest. It's an identity created through a combination of geography and being 'another place' from both Liverpool and Chester. You're also right that it's diverse - the west and east sides of the peninsula are totally different places.
 
#2,137 ·
From the Liverpool Echo -

Former Cole Street school in Birkenhead to be converted into flats

A former Wirral primary school known for its rooftop playground is set to be converted into apartments.

Cole Street Primary in Birkenhead, near Birkenhead Park, was closed by Wirral Council in 2011 because of falling numbers and its 113 pupils were transferred to nearby Cathcart Street school.

Plans have now been submitted which would see 36 apartments created in an extended school building. A three-storey building with 11 apartments would also be erected on the site.

[...]
Artists impressions of the converted school -





Article continues at - http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/cole-street-birkenhead-wirral-flats-9431456
 
#2,141 · (Edited)
I wonder how many non-Manhattanite New Yorkers say they are from New York when talking to other americans, rather than replying "Brooklyn", "Queens", etc when asked where they are from?

These areas have their own distinct identities, and being part of New York only enhances that not diminishes it. These days Queens and Brooklyn are almost as well known anywhere as New York itself - would this be the case if New York didn't exist as a city? I doubt it. Everyone has heard of Liverpool, but if Wirral gets any general recollection at all in the UK (let alone globally, where it may as well be Todmorden) it is only vague.
 
#2,142 ·
Hm, yeah but the Wirral is perhaps more analogous to Long Island than Brooklyn or Queens. It's a geographical feature with distinctive Liverpolitan towns, inner city and suburbs covering most of it. Birkenhead and Wallasey, now they are a good analogy to Brooklyn and Queens and in that order. It's such a pity that the 1974 top down Whitehall reorganisation partly wiped out the local identities of real urban places like Bhead and Wsey. Some day another reorganisation will do away with the misbegotten likes of Sefton, Wirral and Knowsley and these manufactured places will disappear from people's imaginations of where they are in an instant, just like Avon did in the mid-90s.
 
#2,143 ·
Some day another reorganisation will do away with the misbegotten likes of Sefton, Wirral and Knowsley and these manufactured places will disappear from people's imaginations of where they are in an instant, just like Avon did in the mid-90s.
They are silly constructs. Southport needs a town council, Birkenhead needs a town council, Heswall needs a town council. Nothing fancy, just something parish-style which notes what's going on the area, what needs sorting out and how, and which can feed that back up up the chain to get the money down to deal with things on the ground.

On that score, if those agitating against metropolitan devolution took their anti-Liverpool blinkers off they would see that there is an opportunity here to get much better local decision making in the longer term. The eventual abolition of the borough councils and the establishment of a Liverpool City Region Assembly -> Local Councils arrangement is the logical structure to get things done on both large and small scales, and the natural progression of ever deeper devolution.
 
#2,145 ·
Aye, it's the political fiefdoms that need to be dismantled. Places are places albeit we're often stronger when we act as one. The whole metropolitan area is linked and dependant on each other - this is the strength. In London you have areas that we'd unflinchingly call 'London' but long term inhabitants may refer to as Surrey, Kent, Essex, etc. That Croydon, Richmond, Kingston, Bromley etc. have their own focal points and heritage.

The issue here is the metropolitan area is clearly 'Liverpool' to a wider audience whilst Bootle, Birkenhead, Prescot, Formby, etc. all distinct within. Without the city they'd be villages or hick towns though!
 
#2,146 ·
Hey the people in Wirral villages are far richer than the people in the towns! If only we all lived the Wallace and Gromit life in Puddington.

It doesn't matter what Johnny Mancunian thinks about where we are really. Its like when people call Paul O'Grady a 'Liverpudlian Comedian' despite him never saying he was from Liverpool. They got it wrong, oh well. Beyond the North West I don't actually think anyone knows towns up here anyway, except Blackpool.
 
#2,147 ·
Beyond the North West I don't actually think anyone knows towns up here anyway, except Blackpool.
This is a key point, of making it clear to outsiders that Birkenhead, Bromborough, Kirkby, wherever, when they hear these names that they know them and understand them as part of a bigger whole, with correspondingly far more to offer than just a small town experience.

It makes a difference for all sorts of reasons, ranging from putting areas on the radar for businesses doing location scouting, to tourists going further than the city centre when they come to Liverpool (or indeed coming to Liverpool specifically because they want to go to something they've heard about in Bebbington, etc).

Gathering around the name "Liverpool" is easy because it's what everyone outside the area thinks when they hear a range of accents they collectively term "scouse", and it's an internationally recognised name, but I don't see why it needs to actually subsume local identities, in fact I think it should and will strengthen those. It would be great if in future years Wirral was a name just as well known, and understood in its modern day context - when that day comes we won't be talking about Birkenhead's town centre needing rejuvenating, because it will be rejuvenated.
 
#2,152 ·
Yes I've been there it's very nice. I have a nice memory of it from childhood, so nice I don't dare remember it for fear of corrupting the memory. Have you ever done that with a nice memory of a place? Or even worse, returned to somewhere you liked when you were young? It's a terrible thing to do. Go to Puddington once and then don't look back. Walk away. Do not return. Except in your dreams.
 
#2,155 ·
Roses and Snow has illustrated perfectly why the concept of Wirral being this fake construct that didn't exist up until Liverpool overspilled onto it, is silly.

I agree, politically, Wirral and Liverpool need to come together under a City Region, but to write off a long and proud independent history of a peninsula, is really rather daft. It is actually "Merseyside" that is the false modern construct.
 
#2,156 · (Edited)
But there is no such history and absolutely no culture of independence - it's made-up and modern. There's never been a political or social or cultural or economic "Wirral" until 1st April 1974 when a metropolitan borough council was imposed on independent towns. It's modern. Made-up. You have false-history syndrome.

There are lot of things that have existed historically, and culturally, and politically, and economically: a kingdom of Mercia, for example, but not a "Wirral" as such. Just scarcely connected villages on a landmass. Not a "place" as such, the places where the towns and villages themselves which enjoyed the same local expression as towns and villages everywhere.

The Wirral identity fantasy is modern and has been expensively created by a (failed) local authority that spent countless thousands upon thousands of pounds on propaganda.

Incidentally, for historians of "Wirral" identity (ie those interested in events post 1974) what is the whole "Eurowirral" thing about? I've never understood it. They've dropped it now, but it was the weirdest branding. Was it some sort of reminder that they wanted their fair share of Merseyside's objective 1 money?
 
#2,159 ·
There is a bigger point here, bigger than whether duhhhh Liverpool expanded to the over side of the river 200 years ago and in fact did so well before it did most of the rest of Liverpool. And it's not the obvious fact that to live in Liverpool and not know that you do means you are a thick as mince. Instead it's that what stupid people think isn't random, it never is. You don't get someone in Barrow in Furness thinking he lives in Bournemouth, not matter how stupid he is even though that is a truly stupid thing to think. Stupid people instead think the same thing (something that an intelligent child would reject - I from a more distant suburb than anything on the Wirral understood the obvious fact of where I was aged 5-6 - and I'm not boasting now, it isn't hard). No half complete personality without a subpar intellect from the urban parts of the Wirral does not comprehend where they live. Why do the others think what they think? Someone has told them to think that. It is only interesting to examine who and why.
 
#2,160 ·
http://www.historyofwallasey.co.uk/wallasey/

Wallasey history. But anything going back more than a couple of hundred years is tenuous because, then, it probably wasn't regarded as Wallasey at all, but as pertaining to the relevant hamlet. So you can appropriate those individual village and hamlet histories into the identified modern place of Wallasey, but so what? It doesn't mean Wallasey is an ancient town, it isn't.
 
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