• 16.08.2025

Exclusive: How Wirral Council’s multi-million pound regeneration dream crashed

A Post investigation sees council insiders claim senior officials ‘put a bullet in the head’ of plans to improve the peninsula

When former asset management director Marcus Shaw became Wirral Council’s interim director of regeneration in 2024, he couldn't have expected an easy ride. Indeed, recent history tells us there are few jobs, if any, as cursed as this one, few chalices quite so poisoned. In just three years four directors of regeneration have been seen off, each seemingly more unpopular than the last, as a council which stood on the precipice of a huge and exciting regeneration process has descended into in-fighting and ill-feeling.

Now, Wirral Council finds itself at a new precipice: that of financial collapse. In November last year, the council requested a £40m government bailout in order to keep it afloat. And last month, a report revealed the council was already £12m over budget for regeneration works in Birkenhead.

Somehow, Shaw’s tenure appears to be going even worse than his predecessors. One opposition councillor, speaking to The Post anonymously, went as far as to suggest his appointment was an “act of vandalism” by the council — there were numerous other esteemed candidates for the position, all who held more regeneration experience than him and were less divisive across party lines. Despite this, none were offered an interview.

Just weeks after Shaw was made a permanent fixture in the council — ascending from interim to fulltime director of regeneration in March this year — an inquiry was launched into the regeneration department, focusing on how so many projects had veered away from plans, costs spiralling. In a public statement, the council’s new leader, Paula Basnett, said she would not be “brushing anything under the carpet”, and would “hold officers to account” over mistakes made.

Since then, Shaw has been absent from his role, with many speculating as to his return or removal from the ill-fated post. A council spokesperson said: “Many of these issues are currently being looked at as part of an internal audit and an external regeneration review. We won’t comment while these pieces of work are ongoing. Once they have concluded, the findings will be made public.”

To understand how Wirral Council got itself to this point, you have to go back to 2022. With the pandemic in recent memory, and councils all across the country facing serious financial challenges, Wirral Council looked like the rarest of things: a local government success story. It had just received millions of pounds of funding to transform its towns, thanks in part to its ambitious plans for Birkenhead, which aimed to mirror the success of Salford Quays, using the backdrop of Liverpool to sell Birkenhead as a hub for new business and residential developments.

Back then, Alan Evans was the man in charge of regeneration. His 20-year plan, named Birkenhead 2040, had several key aims. First, he wanted to build an active travel network of high quality cycle and pedestrian routes throughout the town. Over 21,000 new homes would be built, moving an additional 46,000 people into Birkenhead. Over 900,0000 sqm of commercial space would also be created, and the historic Birkenhead Market would be regenerated. The concrete flyovers behind Hind Street Urban Village would be demolished, and new primary schools, public squares and offices would open. All this regeneration would make use of brownfield land across the town — much to the relief of residents, who had been campaigning against the development of the greenbelt.

According to one insider who worked at the council at this time, Evans’s plan was “very convincing”, and helped the council win various regeneration funds from the government — including £25m from the Town Deal fund in July 2021. In part, they attribute this success to Evans being a "charismatic leader” who was “well respected” by council officers. “He worked hard and always made an effort to communicate with [councillors],” they add.

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However in August 2022, Evans resigned from his role to take up a job with Homes England. His interim replacement was assistant regeneration director Sally Shah, before a new full-time head of regeneration, David Hughes, stepped into the position in January 2023.

“When Alan Evans left, it was like a switch just went off,” one former council official says. Immediately, plans to regenerate Birkenhead began to unravel, with one councillor describing the differences between Evans and Hughes’s approach as “chalk and cheese”.