Wirral Thread

[Paul D]

Morrisons were taking the piss wanting to put their supermarket there,why can't they put it in the place where the new marine lake is going to be,why fill in the marine lake and put the supermarket there and then build a marine lake elsewhere it just doesn't make sense?second best shouldn't just be accepted just for the sake of it and I hope any concerns about the supermarket are put right before this can proceed,if not then forget it.

[Megga]

The old marine lake was only built to serve as an inlet for the old swimming pool. Its an absolute dump at the moment. A supermarket would be much better than whats there at present. The supermarket is not the joke New Brighton is!!!!!

[Fat Harris]

let's hope they come back with a new proposal sooner rather than later. New Brighton has spent far too long as a dead resort. Let's have a proper funfair, rollercoasters, the lot. Have a watersports centre, something that will bring people from outside the area IN to the area. We need something. Not just a bowling alley and half an amusement arcade.

[liverpolitan]

Originally Posted by Radley

earlier today....on wirral globe website
another mess for neptune, fourth grace...
another mess for wirral, cammell laird, rest off the wirral portfolio

A 'crushing blow' for New Brighton
By Justin Dunn

How New Brighton would have looked

A CONTROVERSIAL £75m plan to regenerate New Brighton with new leisure and retail facilities has been thrown out by the Government....

.....Wirral Council leader Steve Foulkes described the news as "a crushing blow".... Steve Parry, managing director of Neptune Developments, said: "We are naturally disappointed by the outcome of the public enquiry. "The proposed scheme enjoyed widespread backing from local residents, businesses and Wirral Council as well English Heritage.

HA HA HA. At last a tiny bit of common sense. It was outrageously stupid, a truly uncivilised attack on New Brighton. Those who supported it should consider their positions, and I'd want to know how EH will respond to this. Their advice is plainly not worth the paper its printed on. I think heads should roll. People who champion such schemes and waste public resource in so doing need to be removed from positions of responsibility.

But, while Morrisons can't help in this, it must be admitted that New Brighton is a food desert. When I visit relatives there, I buy food in Liverpool and take it over with me, because there is no food you can buy in New Brighton (or the rest of Wallasey) that you would care to eat. It is like 1970s Siberia. If you like lard, rotten bananas, cheap white bread and consider ASDA somewhere to go for an annual blow-out, then Wallasey is your town. I don't actually think New Brighton requires any regeneration, but it does need an organic food shop, a vegetarian food shop, and similar things. Some kind of urban commune like Christiania in Copenhagen could be encouraged (and that is something that will just happen if you permit it, you don't have to make it), perhaps on the site of the old swimming pool. I can see 1,000 hippies settling on the sunken seafront greens, setting up semi-permanent accommodation, making things, performing, and supporting good food shops.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractio...n_Zealand.html

[liverpolitan]

[Liverpool8]

I was in New Brighton on Sunday at about 3pm. The promenade was quite busy with people walking up to the park past Victoria Road and then back to the indoor fun fair. Up and down, up and down with the occasional lick on an ice cream, and signs of rows to come later on taking shape in the faces of some of the couples. Strong loading towards older people. It was interesting watching the power boats and jet skis setting off from the slipway next to what would have been the pier and we enjoyed watching two enormous freighters arriving on the neap tide and being turned by tugs mid-river to enter Gladstone. New Brighton could be soooo nice. Unfortunately it's got a long way to go, a very long way to go before it comes close to matching West Kirby or Hoylake, even Moreton seems to have more umph! If you have seen the film The Magnet, you would not believe it was the same place. Heart breaking.

[Doctor Robot]

The Magnet shows nothing of the hustle and bustle of 1950s New Brighton. It gives the appearance of being quite a sedate seaside resort. I was disappointed that there were no shots of the Tower Ballroom and outdoor funfair.
On reflection, I think most of the New Brighton beach shots were filmed midweek when everyone was at work. It would have been heaving with people over the weekend.

[Liverpool8]

Originally Posted by Doctor Robot

The Magnet shows nothing of the hustle and bustle of 1950s New Brighton. It gives the appearance of being quite a sedate seaside resort. I was disappointed that there were no shots of the Tower Ballroom and outdoor funfair.
On reflection, I think most of the New Brighton beach shots were filmed midweek when everyone was at work. It would have been heaving with people over the weekend.

We were sitting near the entrance of what used to be the Tower grounds. Trying to imagine what it was like in its heyday was hard. I'm told that there used to be yet another smaller fun fair parallel to the promenade where there is now just grass. Victoria Road, according to people who were around in the 60s was lined with shops and cafes on both sides. Look at it now. Between Victoria Road and the Lido there was a wide choice of amusements etc. etc., and not the air of general dereliction there is now. Although it looks as though the indoor fair has received a fresh coat of lime green and white paint. My favourite views of Liverpool are from New Brighton and I love getting the train to the station and walking back along the promenade to Seacombe and getting the boat back. I often ask myself why it didn't survive more than it has. How come West Kirby and Hoylake went from strength to strength and New Brighton went tits up and turned into a residential suburb of Liverpool? Lolly I guess.

[liverpolitan]

Originally Posted by Liverpool8

We were sitting near the entrance of what used to be the Tower grounds. Trying to imagine what it was like in its heyday was hard. I'm told that there used to be yet another smaller fun fair parallel to the promenade where there is now just grass. Victoria Road, according to people who were around in the 60s was lined with shops and cafes on both sides. Look at it now. Between Victoria Road and the Lido there was a wide choice of amusements etc. etc., and not the air of general dereliction there is now. Although it looks as though the indoor fair has received a fresh coat of lime green and white paint. My favourite views of Liverpool are from New Brighton and I love getting the train to the station and walking back along the promenade to Seacombe and getting the boat back. I often ask myself why it didn't survive more than it has. How come West Kirby and Hoylake went from strength to strength and New Brighton went tits up and turned into a residential suburb of Liverpool? Lolly I guess.

New Brighton was originally created as a high class residential suburb, to be to Liverpool what Brighton was to London. The resort came later. It's more recent experience, of the last fifteen years, is a perfect case study of how regeneration reduces economic, social and cultural value. Its emerging role as decadent, debauched, drug-hazed, counter-cultural post-resort suburb was ruthlessly killed off with the faux-Victorian shop fronts and tidy bungalows that have destroyed Victoria Road.

Urban ecology sometimes requires a bit of patience - to just let places change and find a new role. I am still keen on allowing New B to revert to what seemed in the 1980s to be a potential trajectory - of becoming a sort of "hippy central" for Liverpool City Region, a British Christiania. All this tidying away and tidying up is totally against the spirit of the place. If New B is about anything it is about joy - hot summer afternoons filled with the noise of crowds, where the clocks all stopped and that are still going on, echoing through time, endlessly. I can close my eyes and I am there now, as well as in the 1960s, with my friends on the beach under the Pier.

Regeneration has stolen the joy from New Brighton. How to get it back? Stop regeneration, and let people and the place revert to type: eccentric, slightly sleazy, idle, disreputable, messy, irresponsible and fun-loving.

[Liverpool8]

Originally posted by Liverpolitan

New Brighton was originally created as a high class residential suburb, to be to Liverpool what Brighton was to London. The resort came later. It's more recent experience, of the last fifteen years, is a perfect case study of how regeneration reduces economic, social and cultural value. Its emerging role as decadent, debauched, drug-hazed, counter-cultural post-resort suburb was ruthlessly killed off with the faux-Victorian shop fronts and tidy bungalows that have destroyed Victoria Road.

Urban ecology sometimes requires a bit of patience - to just let places change and find a new role. I am still keen on allowing New B to revert to what seemed in the 1980s to be a potential trajectory - of becoming a sort of "hippy central" for Liverpool City Region, a British Christiania. All this tidying away and tidying up is totally against the spirit of the place. If New B is about anything it is about joy - hot summer afternoons filled with the noise of crowds, where the clocks all stopped and that are still going on, echoing through time, endlessly. I can close my eyes and I am there now, as well as in the 1960s, with my friends on the beach under the Pier.

Regeneration has stolen the joy from New Brighton. How to get it back? Stop regeneration, and let people and the place revert to type: eccentric, slightly sleazy, idle, disreputable, messy, irresponsible and fun-loving.[/

Yes please!

[Rock Ferry]

Originally Posted by liverpolitan

let people and the place revert to type: eccentric, slightly sleazy, idle, disreputable, messy, irresponsible and fun-loving.

How?

[liverpolitan]

Originally Posted by Rock Ferry

How?

It's the way spaces and places are managed. Policing methods are a part of it. Planning policy is another part of it, and regeneration policy, where one exists, is a part of the problem and potentially part of the solution.

I was thinking more about the differences between New Brighton and say West Kirby (or even Southport), and the difference may be that New Brighton was a bit rougher - it seemed to be more about sex, drugs, rock'n'roll than just sandcastles and ice-cream. It had unusual and sometimes rough pubs, bizarre basement clubs and drinking dens of the sort David Lynch seems have visited judging by his films, a thousand flats and bedsits, an air of friendly tolerance - pissing in the street on a Friday night was normal in New B, I bet nowadays it's a fixed penalty offence. A small but natural night-time economy existed that doesn't need a strategy to create, that exists if you let it by not forcing places to close. Crowding NIMBY residents of tidy little barrett boxes into the area crowds out any possibility for fun. The first sign of fun they complain. So would I - it's a problem of regenerators trying to change the purpose of a place. The paid regenerators couldn't conceive of a future for the resort, so they euthenised it - but even that was botched, so it's now in a half life between nothingness and a retirement commune.

"Regeneration" fears all the things that a seedy and lively resort is about: grime, a bit of crime, clashing colours and cultures, places burning down, unpredictable behaviour that is sometimes joyous and sometimes a total pain in the arse. "Regeneration" wants to clear away the bench where people innocently sit drinking cider and replace it with a stupid great sandstone boulder with an inlaid heritage sundial.

I'm not making the point well, I'm having to rush, I will think about this and try to give a better reply later. But generally - less planning, less regeneration, more tolerance, and more permission for the market and people to do what they want. I would like Quiggins to open a New Brighton branch, get a sort of resort "fringe" culture of second-rate circuses and freak shows established on the greens, and generally get over this terrified, petrified "we must plan this fucking thing to death" mentality that regenerators impose on all they touch.

EDITED: Sorry, no more thoughts, other than more of the same. The resort needed to develop naturally, with a caring, permissive attitude by planning authorities that was comfortable with a bit of decay. It received the worst possible "off the peg" attention by regenerators (much like the Pier Head is actually) who have a limited repetoire of regeneration "tricks" they charge £1,000 a day per person to customise for naive clients like Wirral Borough Council. They could not conceive of its future because they were completely unqualified to scope out future scenarios or identify the real opportunities. The regeneration industry in this country are little more than a pack of greedy snakeoil salesmen, with no sympathy for the places they prey off.

New Brighton should be counter-culture. Fuck the blood tribute band banality of the Summer Pops, that is patronising, provincial nonsense. There should be a counter-pops event in New Brighton for young people, at the same time. New B should have its own Capital of Culture events, as a part of Liverpool (which it always has been, since its birth), and maybe some of the weirdo Aussie circus and cabaret acts wotsername was slagged off for recruiting might do better on a big tent in New Brighton anyway. New B should be licensing buskers, street performers, encouraging illegal immigrants to set up street stalls - in other words doing everything that the current regime would instinctively and thoughtlessly stamp on.

They want a clean, quiet, polite little resort, and no-one has any interest in such a thing, it's a pointless quest for something that cannot ever exist. They want a resort that has no joy in it, and what can be more futile than that?

[Pietari]

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0...name_page.html

Crisis talks after £75m New Brighton plan axed Aug 3 2006

By Liam Murphy Daily Post Staff

CRISIS talks were being held last night between Wirral Council and developers Neptune after the £75m scheme to regenerate New Brighton was rejected by the Government.

Wirral's cabinet member for regeneration, Cllr Pat Hackett, was meeting the chief executive of Neptune, Steve Parry, to find a way to salvage the ambitious plans for New Brighton.

Secretary of State for Communities Ruth Kelly had the final say in the scheme after a month-long public inquiry held earlier this year.

Although she said the proposals had "many good features" Ms Kelly condemned the plans as "not of a sufficiently high quality design".

The scheme had been considerably amended since it was first put forward five years ago and last night there were hopes the original plans could be dusted off and used. Cllr Hackett said: "We have had very positive talks with Neptune and we will be talking with opposition groups about bringing them on board."

One New Brighton businessman, Chris Walker, owner of the Moodi Blu bar, said he now expected to go out of business.

Mr Walker, who has run the bar at the end of Victoria Road for the last two years, said: "I supported Doug Darroch from Fort Perch Rock because he wanted to protect the heritage of New Brighton.

"But the New Brighton Heritage Action Group people were very selfish because they just wanted to protect their own views.

This would have provided something for the younger generation."

Resort is in 'last chance saloon'

WATCH a video report about the failure of the Neptune project - click here

[Evertonian]

In my opinion THE only thing New Brighton has going for it is the Wirral Show, which is entering it's 30th year this weekend. It's evidence enough that that bit of land could be used a hell of a lot more often for a similar use.

I'd like to see what a genius like James Barton could do with the dips, a slightly smaller scale Creamfields or (if he doesn't get the Summer Pops contract) a Fort Perch Rock music festival with 2 massive arenas, one on each dip, which could be easily fenced off and policed. Bands like The Zutons could be attracted.


To be honest i'm gutted by this news. I'm 28 and my childhood/teenage years are over but all I ever got told when I was a kid was about scheme after scheme to sort the place out and give the kids somewhere to go and something to do....promise after promise has been broken to the point were people simply don't believe New Brighton can ever become something again.

SO HOW MUST POTENTIAL DEVELOPERS FEEL ABOUT THIS KNOCKBACK? WOULD YOU INVEST IN NEW BRO?

Would you fuck! Thats why the prime estate which is the old Vic is still not purchased and lies in rubble. That's why the Grand is a big fuck off hole in the fascade of the waterfront.

People on here are going on about building 50 mike towers! Get a grip!


Heres what I would do now if I was in charge:

1. The dips/vale park

Focus on youth. The old folk NIMBY brigade desrve absolutely FUCK ALL after ruining this development. I'd bring back those bandstands their always harping on about and yearning for....perhaps on the dips or in Vale Park, and i'd have them sponsored by Cream, Radio 1 or 1xtra. Give the arl arses something to really moan about!

Garage bands, House DJ's, emcees and young bands would be allowed to set up any time between mid-day and 10pm at night and play to their hearts content to whatever sized crowd they could bring along. The structure would be made of a massive covered stage with enough roon for bands and their equipment. They would be rigged up to the electricity and the kids could plug their decks or amps in and play to their hearts content in a safe environment, where youth workers would supervise.

Once a year i'd bring in Cream, Chibuku, Circus, Voodoo, The Krazyhouse and others to promote a youth festival where under 18's could have their own night in the dips.


2. The marine lake.

The marine lake is silted to hell and pretty much not up to standard. It was going to be demolished under the neptune plans. I would drain it, clean it and then get a world renowned skate park desinger to come in and concrete shape bowls and verts into it....creating the worlds largest and most complete skate and ramp park in the world. There would be sponsorship from companies like ESPN, Etnies and DC's as well as regular televised skate competitions and events. There would be a small entrance fee which would go towards youth services and the maintenence of the park. It would be floodlit at night and would be staffed 24/7 to avoid vandalism....although the interior walls would be available to legitimate local graffiti artists to paint on.



The proposals would make New Brighton into a 24/7 society based on youth. The arcades would treble in size and profit as would the many coffee/milkshake bars that would be opened, replicating the hang out spots of my fathers youth that no longer exist. New businesses such as skate shops, record shops and other youth orientated enteprises would spring up to catch the youth pound.

Hopefully within 20 years there will be NO moaning old c**ts left and they will have all relocated to Wallasey Village or West Kirby, where they belong.

[liverpolitan]

Nice ideas Evertonian, all of them. The current plans are based on a dismal vision of what a "family" wants, it's all rubbish and not properly researched, as the Inspector pointed out. Wirral is a very poorly run authority, really second-rate.

[Liverpool8]

Travelling along Seabank Road towards Seacombe, past Caithness Drive on the left, opposite a church on the right. There's a large red brick building, looks Edwardian, set in its own grounds with reasonably well tended lawns. All the windows are boarded up and railings prevent you from walking round the back of the building. Looks as though it might have been a school/hotel/Wallasey council building. Anyone knows what it was or future plans for it?

[liverpolitan]

Originally Posted by Liverpool8

Travelling along Seabank Road towards Seacombe, past Caithness Drive on the left, opposite a church on the right. There's a large red brick building, looks Edwardian, set in its own grounds with reasonably well tended lawns. All the windows are boarded up and railings prevent you from walking round the back of the building. Looks as though it might have been a school/hotel/Wallasey council building. Anyone knows what it was or future plans for it?

I think it was a home for retired merchant seamen. Was it surrounded by a little estate with bungalows?

[Fat Harris]

Originally Posted by liverpolitan

I think it was a home for retired merchant seamen. Was it surrounded by a little estate with bungalows?

Yeah, sounds like the seaman's retirement home.

[Fat Harris]

Originally Posted by liverpolitan

Nice ideas Evertonian, all of them. The current plans are based on a dismal vision of what a "family" wants, it's all rubbish and not properly researched, as the Inspector pointed out. Wirral is a very poorly run authority, really second-rate.

The problem is, while we have a hung council, nothing will ever truly be done, and while we have a huge gap between the two ends of the property and social spectrum in Wirral, no party will have overall control.

[Liverpool8]

Thanks Poli and Fats. If it were north of the river and south of the city it would br turned into a boutique hotel or 'luxury apartments and health spa' before you could say, 'They've pulled down the cinema in King Street.' I agree that the divide between east and west Wirral creates an unhealing wound on the peninsula. I have just been reading Sloyne's post about proposals for Mersey barrages. I think the idea of one from the Dingle to New Ferry stands a better chance of realisation, and would psychologically connect the two sides of the river in a way that, hopefully, over a period of time will shatter the faux, mock tudor, Cheshire pretensions of West Wirral (and other parts, too). Part of me will be sorry to see them go. The full on, mock tudor mentality seems amusingly kitsch and unwittingly camp. It always brings a smile to my face.