A tale of two cities: how do we answer the north Liverpool question?

Wards six miles apart in Liverpool have a 12 year difference in life expectancy. The city’s north-south divide has become its most pressing issue

By Jack Walton and Daniel Timms

Take the 27 bus from Lodge Lane on a Sunday afternoon, and follow it through to Anfield. It’s an interesting journey. Going by the data, you’ll be travelling between two areas of Liverpool that rank right up there as among the most deprived in the country. And yet, perch yourself upstairs right at the front. Watch as the colour slowly drains from the vistas in front of you. These are two places with very different trajectories. 

Michael Heseltine, the former minister who helped to drag the city up off its backside decades ago, recently said he was “moved to tears” by the transformation of Liverpool since he was first dispatched here in the 80s. But the miracle revival has been a geographically contained one. Liverpool has a shop window — its waterfront — befitting Harrods these days. But back in aisle 18, things are falling apart. 

Certainly, the pages of the Echo don’t make it sound like the most appealing place on earth if you type “north Liverpool Echo”…