Town haul? An uncertain future for Wirral’s civic buildings
Plus: a rather surprising guest at Labour’s victory drinks…
Dear readers — welcome to your Post briefing. We hope you’re not feeling too down in the dumps after last night’s tense Euros final. But just in case the blues (and the booze) haven’t worn off yet, we’ve packed today’s edition with lots of riveting gossip as a welcome distraction…
Recap: Over the weekend, we published a fantastic piece by The New Statesman’s Jonny Ball on Liverpool’s Provincial Grand Orange Lodge, the Protestant headquarters of the city’s section of the Loyal Orange Institution. In a now fairly irreligious city like Liverpool, why do the Order continue to march every 12th July? Read it here.
There were also two great members-only pieces last week. On Tuesday, Ophira headed down to Wombat Jazz Club to meet Ni Maxine, a jazz singer from Liverpool who has performed at festivals across the country. Then on Thursday, Jack took a journey through some of the city’s hit TV series and asked: why is every single TV show that gets made about Liverpool these days about gangs or crime?
Editor’s note: To read those stories in full, you’ll need to be a paying member of The Post. It costs just £7 a month and gives you access to our entire back catalogue of investigations, features and opinion pieces. Our paying members can also leave comments on our stories and get exclusive invites to our events as soon as they are announced. Click the button below to join the gang!
Local, affordable, beautiful: Liverpool Art Fair’s 10th birthday
From today's sponsor: Liverpool Art Fair was set up to celebrate the incredible range of art being produced in this city. This year it's back at the Royal Liver Building until 18th August, where you can view and purchase works by established artists and new talents. All artwork is under £2000 and there's a large section under £200 — with limited edition prints starting at just £20 — so there really is something for all budgets. Alongside the display there are creative workshops, and a programme of events designed to support artists starting or growing a business.
Full details of the fair can be found here.
Your Post briefing
On the grapevine: Labour politicians from across the northwest found themselves chinking glasses with a surprising face at the party’s post-election drinks in Manchester last week: one Peter Mitchell. Mitchell, the CEO of the Big Help Project (the subject of Abi’s widely-read two-part investigation) hasn’t been a party member for some time, having quit in 2021 amid an ongoing investigation into sexual harassment claims. The big do, held at Freight Island in Manchester, was attended by the best-known Labour figures in the region, such as Steve Rotheram and Andy Burnham. But the attendance of Mitchell, a man whose charity is under investigation by the Charity Commission and who left the party under a cloud, had a few attendees scratching their heads.
The head-scratching didn’t stop there. Perhaps even more surprising than the reappearance of Mitchell was the sudden disappearance of Liam Didsbury: the party’s regional director for the northwest who has allegedly resigned from his role. Didsbury, alongside Sheila Murphy, has spent the past three years shaping the local Labour Party, making many enemies on the way (one Labour councillor recently told us that Didsbury was “drunk on power” — claiming he’d parachuted close associates into several positions of power without any semblance of due process). Now, with Labour having won a massive majority, he’s suddenly gone… Know anything about this story? Email abi@livpost.co.uk.
And fantastic news for Nelson Shardey, the 74-year-old retired Wirral shopkeeper who was previously told he had no right to stay in the UK by the Home Office. Shardey, who moved to Wallasey from Ghana as a student in 1977, was told he was not a British citizen and instructed to leave the UK after applying for a new passport in 2019. After news broke of his expulsion, more than £48,000 was raised by members of his local community to pay for his legal fees to fight the decision. Now, after months of deliberation, the Home Office has decided he can stay in the UK for good.
The big story: Town haul? An uncertain future for Wirral’s civic buildings
Top line: The future of two of Wirral’s town halls is up in the air after the council announced they may sell off the properties to balance the books. Birkenhead and Wallasey town hall have both been declared “underused” in a report, which suggested the venues could be redeveloped for leisure purposes instead.
Context: Back in autumn 2023, Wallasey town hall was closed by Wirral Council to save money on energy and heating costs. Then, in February this year, proposals were made by the council to keep it closed for a further 12 months in an attempt to save a further £400,000. But even that’s not enough. The council have now announced they are looking at options to sell both Wallasey and Birkenhead town hall to help hit their savings target.
‘Unusually monumental’: Both buildings are of major historic significance to the Wirral, with Wallasey town hall’s listed status upgraded to Grade II* in 2023 after the building was deemed “unusually monumental” by Historic England.
Built in 1914, the hall was originally used as a military hospital before becoming a municipal building six years later, and has been visited by King George V, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. In recent years, it has been described as "one of the most recognisable structures on [Wirral’s] coast" by the council.
Birkenhead town hall is also a Grade II* listed building, and was home to the Wirral Archives Service and the Wirral Museum until 2010. It is still used as the town's focal point for Remembrance Sunday ceremonies each year.
An expensive task: Both require considerable renovations before they can be brought back into full use. The estimated price tag is nearly £6 million for Wallasey — which has significant water damage — and just short of £4 million for Birkenhead over the next 15 years.
Town Haul: But is there money to be made? According to the report, both Birkenhead and Wallasey town hall are "not a good use of [council] resources" but do have potential to be used for “leisure” purposes. A consultant in the report said while Birkenhead town hall was too small to be used as a hotel or an office space, there was potential for “enhanced leisure use”. Likewise, while Wallasey was deemed too large to be converted, it also had “opportunities around leisure uses” if it were to be sold.
The report ultimately suggests that the “best value for money” for the council would be to sell off at least one of the properties, earmarking Birkenhead town hall as the best option due to its better condition.
Bottom line: Something has clearly gone wrong when a council is having to consider flogging off its most important buildings just to make ends meet. And it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll easily be able to find a ready buyer with the millions needed to patch them up. Across the water in Liverpool, dozens of listed buildings have been left to deteriorate after new purposes for them could not be found quickly enough (we wrote about this a few weeks ago — take a look here). The worry is that these Grade II* listed buildings could meet a similar fate.
Home of the week
If you know your Morning Rooms from your Family Rooms then check out this decadent four-bed home in Hightown. The estate agents claim that Welsh composer Ivor Novello wrote the song ‘We’ll Gather Lilacs in the Spring’ in the dining room of this house. Make of that what you will. £550,000.
Post Picks
🌲 This Tuesday, visitors can take a trip to Eastham to meet Wirral’s oldest resident. Conservation Guide David Favager is conducting a tour of “one of the most important settlements in mediaeval Wirral” – including a visit to the ancient Yew tree. The event starts at 10.45am, and tickets cost £6, going fast.
🎤 Then on Wednesday, Scottish-Algerian poet Janette Ayachi will be exploring heritage through poetry at Bluecoat, as a part of Liverpool Arab Arts Festival. Janette is the award-winning author of two poetry collections, and she is currently working on a travel memoir and her debut novel. Tickets cost £5, but pay-what-you-feel entry is also available.
🍊 If words aren’t really your thing, Unity Theatre will be hosting a dialogue-free play this Thursday. ORANGES AND STONES tells the story of occupation in Palestine entirely through physical action and original music. Also a part of the LAAF, the play starts at 7.30pm, and tickets cost £15.
Recommended reads
After one of the lowest voter turnouts since universal suffrage in this year’s General Election (with only 52% of people casting a vote), this piece by the New York Times reveals why many young voters in northern cities like Liverpool are feeling disillusioned with politics.
For those of you recovering from Cream Classical in Sefton Park over the weekend, this piece in La Vida Liverpool reminiscing on the beloved nightclub might just help. “We had everyone coming to play for us,” local DJ Paul Bleasdale says. “Pete Tong, Paul Oakenfold and all these big names were turning up to play at our night and in some ways it became about the DJ rather than the scene.”
What's gone wrong, you ask. What is easily forgotten is that the fourteen years of Tory rule on behalf of the 1% have included an eye-watering deliberate slashing of the council's budget. Imagine if some criminal regularly took half of your wages. And got away with it. There is no possible way that saving a bit on the heating or flogging a bit more family silver will make up the deficit. However there is another reason. A complete lack of public confidence. For many years the Labour Party has been the biggest on the council. Council officers do fantastic jobs in difficult circumstances but our elected representatives have, to give two examples only, 1) actively welcomed the American accountable care system which has replaced the NHS in Cheshire and Merseyside; and 2) actively refused to condemn the mass murder in Palestine or end investment via the pension fund for which they are responsible in companies which supply murder weapons.
Birkenhead Town Hall is Grade 2* Listed (not Grade 2, as stated in your article). Also, Birkenhead Town Hall is currently in use as offices, for weddings and to hold council meetings.