A slippery slope

Dear readers — In the 1970s, Kirkby council built a dry ski slope without planning permission over a water main, on land they didn't own, pointing directly at the M57. It perhaps unsurprising that their insurers wouldn't let anyone ski on it. It is, in other words, an absolutely perfect story of council chaos— and someone's finally made a play about it.

We sent Laurence along to the Royal Court's dress rehearsal of the new production, Taking The Piste, to find out if it does justice to one of Merseyside's most glorious political scandals.

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A slippery slope

Prior to the internet, you had to make your own fun. That’s the only way I can square it: that is, Kirkby Urban District Council’s decision in the 1970s to build a dry ski slope. The brainchild of council leader Dave Tempest, architect Eric Stevenson, and builder George Leatherbarrow, the slope was meant to be completed within six months of November 1973. 

However, to quote BBC Nationwide’s famous 1975 reporting, by which point the piste had still not been skied on, it was “already a legend in its own brief troubled lifetime… built without planning permission, over a water main, on land the council didn’t own.” Plus, it was the wrong way round, sending prospective skiers directly towards the M57. This wasn’t worth losing sleep over, since the council’s insurers weren’t going to let anyone ski on it in the first place.

Long before the BBC got involved, some local investigative journalists broke the story. And now the Royal Court’s new play Taking The Piste covers both beats — the ski slope scandal and the importance of local journalism in uncovering it — in a night’s entertainment that feels like it’s been engineered in a lab for coverage in this very paper. But can a two-hour play do justice to such a sprawling and enjoyably comic turn of events?