A Tale of Two 'Sons: Is Everton's stadium move helping or hurting the city?

Dear readers — From a footballing standpoint, the Hill Dickinson Stadium has been a success so far. Everton’s enormous new home on Bramley-Moore Dock has seen the Toffees unbeaten in competitive fixtures, with victories over Brighton & Hove Albion and Mansfield Town and a draw with Aston Villa. 

Furthermore, when that first defeat does finally arrive, blues can be consoled by the fact it will be in a stadium that blends the best of purpose-built football terrace tradition and comfortable modern convenience. Reviews of the architecture itself have been positive. “Everton’s dizzying new stadium is already a Mersey gem,” proclaimed a Telegraph headline, while the Guardian praised Everton’s “sleek new home”, its roof “a flowing arch of polished steel” that “glints like a swallow’s wing in the early afternoon sunlight.” And some of you say Laurence is too flowery…

Speaking of our resident sports writer, cultural critic, religion correspondent and chief tea-maker, he visited the then-unnamed Everton Stadium back in March. Suitably wowed by the new venue’s potential, he found it in an area of the city’s dockland long-since economically deprived and undeveloped, albeit boasting pockets of a de rigeur nightlife. 

This was a far cry from Walton. For all its problems, Everton’s former home was replete with cafes, takeaways, and pubs serving eager match day fans in their thousands. The only pub Laurence found near the new ground was the aptly-named Bramley Moore, a once-quiet dockland alehouse suddenly overrun with football fans spilling onto Regent Road with plastic beer cups. 

Just a handful of games into the season, how is Everton’s new base of operations shaping up? Have new places opened, or is the area still an alcohol desert? And is Walton suffering from the men’s team’s departure, even as Everton Women take up Goodison Park?

To find out, we sent Laurence back to Bramley-Moore for today’s Answers in The Post. But first, your regularly scheduled Post briefing.

Your Post briefing

The inquiry into the Southport stabbings continues at Liverpool Town Hall. On Monday, it was revealed that Gary Poland, the taxi driver who drove Axel Rudakubana to the scene, saw and heard children running from the building but drove away and did not call police until some 50 minutes later. On Tuesday, it transpired that, weeks before the attacks, Alphonse Rudakubana — the father of Axel — failed to report the fact his son tried to take a taxi to his former school with what he suspected was a knife. The inquiry had previously heard that Alphonse Rudakbana told police in 2023 he intercepted a machete Axel had ordered online and "hid it on top of a wardrobe". Det Ch Insp Jason Pye, who led the criminal investigation, confirmed the teenager's online shopping history showed a "pattern and proclivity" towards ordering bladed weapons but that no evidence existed that the killer subscribed to an extreme or any form of Islam, even though that was a possibility “we kept very open minded about all the way through the investigation."

Jaguar Landrover (JLR) has confirmed their Halewood factory won't resume operations until at least 1st October. A cyber attack, which came to light on 1st September, severely affected JLR, shutting down its computer systems and closing its production lines worldwide. By mid-September, the firm was thought to have lost at least £50 million, leaving the government facing calls for a furlough scheme to be set up to prevent widespread job losses. On Tuesday, industry minister Chris McDonald and business secretary Peter Kyle visited JLR’s West Midlands heartlands for the first time since the cyber-crisis. McDonald said the visit was an opportunity to "listen to workers and hear how we can support them and help get production back online." Claire Hamilton, the BBC’s political reporter for Merseyside, posted on X that the story should be bigger national news: “People complain that “we don’t make anything in this country anymore” — but we do! 1000s of workers making prestige cars on Merseyside that have been global best sellers.”

And otters have been spotted in the Mersey! The Mersey Gateway Environmental Trust, a nonprofit seeking to protect, manage and improve conditions for wildlife in the Upper Mersey Estuary, posted to its Facebook page a video of European otters swimming in the estuary. The trust said it had previously recorded signs of otters around the estuary, such as paw prints, but this footage by budding wildlife photographer Zac Hinchcliffe was the first video evidence. The sighting may also be indicative of animals otters like to eat — such as crabs and eels — also thriving. To read our recent piece about the Mersey and its attempted clean-ups, click here.