Liverpool saved Zoe's Place, but other charities in the city are still struggling to survive
Plus: Liverpool Cathedral gets its Christmas stamp, and a chance to meet horror writer Ramsey Campbell
Dear readers — we hope you had a wonderful weekend soaking up scenes of brilliant Comic-Con cosplayers wandering through Liverpool city centre. We know we did — both Laurence and Abi were in attendance this weekend, and Laurence will have a story about the magic of the convention and its love affair with the city coming later this week.
If you missed our weekend read, now is a great time to catch up. Laurence revisited the masterpiece that is Revengers Tragedy: a 2002 cyberpunk dystopia set in Liverpool that is as bonkers as it is glorious.
On with today’s edition, which is packed full of our top recommendations for fun things to do in Merseyside this week, as well as our big story: a huge win for children’s hospice Zoe’s Place — and what the monumental effort it took to save it says about the state of essential-service charities struggling to survive in Liverpool.
Editor’s note: We’ve had a fantastic week of growth here at The Post, with more than 20 new members joining us after Abi’s investigation into alleged financial mismanagement and ‘shocking’ decision-making at LIPA MAT. Our target is 75 new members this month – can you help us get over the finish line? If you’re not yet a paid subscriber and want to support us in doing more investigations, cultural analysis and profiles of some of Merseyside’s most colourful characters, please click that button below. It costs just £7 a month and gives you access to our entire back catalogue of articles, as well as a lucrative invite to our future Post events.
The big story: Liverpool saved Zoe's Place, but other charities in the city are still struggling to survive
Top Line: Zoe’s Place, the hospice which cares for babies and young children, has been saved from closure after more than £6m was raised in just a month’s time. Donations from Home Bargains, sportswear firm Montirex, and celebrities like Robbie Fowler and “Meatball” Molly McCann, as well as from the local community, helped keep the beleaguered charity alive.
Context: Ever since the implementation of austerity measures by the coalition government in the early 2010s, hospices and charities in the UK have been under increasing pressure. In 2016/17, two in three hospices in England reported that their state funding had been frozen or cut, with 80% saying they were more reliant on charitable giving. Meanwhile, according to a joint study by Pro Bono Economics and Nottingham Business School, austerity led to a 23% drop in charity income from local governments.
The Covid-19 pandemic further turned the screw. And on Merseyside, it was no different. In 2020, more than half of Liverpool-based charities told a Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) poll that they would no longer be sustainable within a year, with smaller charities more vulnerable to income shocks caused by Covid. Separate polling by the Small Charities Coalition (SCC) revealed that around the same proportion (50%) had not received any government support that year as of September 2020.
So it was not a surprise in early October when Zoe’s Place announced it would be closing down for good at the end of 2024.
Background: Based in West Derby, Zoe’s Place supports babies and young children with complex illnesses or disabilities from birth to age five.
The hospice was founded in 1995 by Professor Jack Scarisbrick as an extension of his work with the anti-abortion group Life. Scarisbrick, alongside his wife Nuala, founded Life in 1970. According to Life’s Head of Communications Stuart Cowie, speaking in a press statement in 2015, the organisation “has grown to become the largest pro-life enterprise in the UK.” Cowie went on to describe Zoe’s Place as Life’s “daughter charity.”
The campaign: Zoe’s Place was renting their Yew Tree Lane site from a Catholic order called the Institute of Our Lady of Mercy. According to the Institute's Sister Bernadette, no rent had been asked from Zoe’s Place since 2023, but it was explained to the hospice that the lease was due to end in June 2024 and that the Sisters would also be leaving the site.
Zoe’s Place’s attempted move to a new £3.5m purpose-built site, which then fell through after costs spiralled to over £5m. This left 41 jobs at the hospice in jeopardy. The announcement that the hospice would be closing was made “with great sadness” — a decision Joan Stainsby, executive trustee, said staff had “worked tirelessly to avoid”.
This announcement spurred a fundraising campaign, supported by West Derby MP Ian Byrne. Liverpool-based retailer TJ Morris Ltd, which trades as Home Bargains, promised £2.5m. Sportswear firm Montirex and the Hot Water Comedy Club also raised hundreds of thousands of pounds. Other contributors to the campaign included ex-Liverpool player Robbie Fowler, musician Jamie Webster, and comedians Adam Rowe and John Bishop. But it was small contributions from locals that ultimately tipped the scales, including bake sales — like this one at St Julie’s Catholic School — and small donations from residents across all walks of life. “From kids dropping their pocket money into a collection bucket and elderly people donating their pension,” Byrne said, “It really has felt like the whole city has come together”.
After the £6.4m target was met, enough for Zoe’s Place to fund their new site, Byrne said he "could not be more proud right now to be a Scouser".
Bottom line: Although Zoe’s Place has been saved, trying times for hospices in Liverpool and around the country continue. Only around a third of funding for UK hospices comes from the government, meaning the rest (over £1b a year) must be raised by the hospices themselves. Earlier this year, Hospice UK highlighted that a fifth of hospices were cutting services amid the worst funding crisis in two decades, with an estimated shortfall of £60m in the current financial year. This follows a £47m shortfall in funding between 2021 and 2023.
For hospices across the UK, there’s been cuts in the number of inpatient beds, staff redundancies, and a restriction of in-the-community services, with fewer visits to housebound patients.
The inevitable consequence? More and more patients pushed back onto the NHS, putting further pressure on already overburdened public services. The vicious cycle results in charities and hospices being relied on more than ever. CAF’s Charity Resilience Index earlier this year found that demand for charity services continues to rise, with “less money to go around amid increased competition for funding”.
Fresh research published by The Charity Commission, the regulator of charities in England and Wales, shows that public trust in charities is higher now than it’s been for a decade. The story of Zoe’s Place’s fundraiser shows this credibility is met with both affection and action. But for hospices, relying on fundraisers and charitable giving is not sustainable in the long term. The Labour government has pledged to create a new National Care Service, in which it says hospices will be included. In the meantime, however, essential services like those provided by Zoe’s Place are too important to be left to crowdsourcing initiatives. Austerity, the pandemic, and the cost of living crisis has left people with less disposable income. The survival of hospices, charities, and other social enterprises should not be left up to the whims and mercies of private donors, be they footballers or retain chains. If hospices are to continue to play a vital role in British public life, a more sustainable funding model must be found.
Your Post briefing
Runcorn and Helsby MP Mike Amesbury will appear in court next month after he was filmed punching a man to the ground in Frodsham. Amesbury was suspended from the Labour Party in October after footage emerged of him in an altercation with a 45-year-old man. Shortly after, Cheshire Police confirmed they had charged him with common assault. He has since described the incident as “deeply regrettable”. Now, Amesbury will appear before Cheshire Magistrates on 30th December.
Liverpool Cathedral is one of five cathedrals chosen to feature in this year’s special edition Christmas stamp collection. Selected alongside Westminster, Bangor, Edinburgh and Armagh, Liverpool Cathedral has been treated to a festive makeover with an illustration of the building drawn by British artist Judy Joel. Sue Jones, the dean of the cathedral, has said she feels "honoured" that the building was chosen, adding: "The [stamp] looks really, really good. I think it's a lovely, modern interpretation of the cathedral." Take a look at the stamp shared by Royal Mail below.
And sad news for the GPO Food Market and Bar, which appears to have closed for good over the weekend. The food market in the Metquarter first opened in 2021, and has since been a home to a variety of independent stall holders selling wares from across the city. However, over the weekend the hall never opened with neighbouring trainer shop Transalpino claiming it was “closed with immediate effect”. Since then, its social media pages and websites have all been deleted. Know any more about this story? Drop us a line at editor@livpost.co.uk.
Home of the week
This three bedroom terraced house in Port Sunlight is on the market for £300,000. The garden is the real showstopper; it was featured on the BBC programme Garden Rescue which transformed the space to include a pond and decked area. Take a tour here.
Post Picks
🥁On Tuesday, Routes and Roots begins their Katumba drumming and movement lessons. The project aims to bring people together, challenging racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. Find out more here.
📖On Thursday, legendary horror writer Ramsey Campbell will be discussing his new book, The Incubations, at Waterstones. Laurence caught up with Ramsey last month — you can read that piece here.
🍺If that’s not your bag, Wirral Beer Festival also begins on Thursday over at Hulme Hall. There will be over 200 beers and ciders on offer, including 80 real ales and 80 craft beers, as well as continental lagers, ciders and a specialty gin and rum bar. It runs until Sunday — tickets here.
📽️And for those of you that enjoyed our weekend read revisiting Revengers Tragedy, why not indulge further with a film night at Kitty’s Laundrette? You’ll have to wait a week for this one — it’s happening next Wednesday — but we wanted to give you the heads up with plenty of time to book.
Recommended reads
Travel back in time with this historic article from The Atlantic. Published in 1890, this piece gives Liverpool some love, highlighting its fantastic architecture and history. “Some delightful hours may be passed in Liverpool, and people do not realise that there are characteristically English sights to be seen there. After all, why wish to be plunged into antiquity? Why, rather, should we not (if I may so speak) wade in by degrees?”
And this piece on the plight of Birkenhead Market by The Wilk (who happens to be one of our readers — hello!) published on Substack earlier this month makes for important reading. Take a look here.
What an amazing effort to have raised so much money in such a short space of time. Spare a thought for Revitalise, the UK’s only provider of respite holidays for severely disabled people and their carers. Revitalise, including its specialist hotel in Southport, is closing down. This is devastating news for staff and clients. There was a petition organised locally, but nothing seems to have come from this. It’s awful that there have to be winners and losers when it comes to charity fundraising.
Great news. And sadly a reflection of the way vital health and care services have been treated, with the drive by both Tory and Labour parties to a health 'market'. No matter how they are dressed up, the forty-two integrated care systems which have replaced a national health service in England were designed and are dominated by American corporations; where staff are too expensive and therefore expendable, and profit comes before people. And the brilliant fight by staff and supporters of Zoe's Place must now be replicated across the whole region: to Save Liverpool Women's Hospital.