West Kirby is ‘supposed to be this quaint, silent town with no problems’

So why has it been slapped with a Public Spaces Protection Order?

By Laurence Thompson

When I was growing up on the Wirral, if you wanted a night out in a seaside town, the choice was between West Kirby and New Brighton. The former was swanky, with a mix of up-market wine bars and divey pubs, sports bars, and rock clubs, while the latter was someone’s run-down memory of a Victorian resort.

We never chose New Brighton.

But that’s started to change. New Brighton is the up-and-coming nighttime hotspot, with a Bohemian vibe, arty credentials, and serious private and public investment. Compared to its counterpart on the Mersey-end of the peninsula’s tip, Dee-facing West Kirby feels static. It’s still well-to-do — if you consult a heat-map of Merseyside house prices, West Kirby and nearby Caldy and Hoylake shine out across the river like a nuclear-irradiated zone. Its residents also trend older than the Wirral average; according to the ONS, 28% are over 65, compared to 22% for the peninsula as a whole. And those demographics haven’t changed much in the last 15 years. 

If anything has changed, perhaps it’s gotten a bit more posh — at least in terms of boozy establishments. The divey pubs, like the Black Horse, Hilbre Court, “Dodgy” Roger’s on the promenade, and the Social Club are gone, as is the Rock Lobster, the chaotic Mojo on the corner of Grange Road and Dee Lane, and the un-mourned sports bar I’ve long since forgotten the name of. Replacing them are the far more urbane LEAF (as in the Bold Street and Smithdown Road establishments known to Liverpool’s hipoisie), the Tap with its diverse array of artisan ales and designer pizzas, and the waterfront bistro Tanskeys. 

The dearly departed West Kirby Social Club. Photo: Laurence Thompson

Since West Kirby has historically been considered one of the nicer, quieter, prettier towns on Merseyside, it came as a surprise when news broke this week that a three-year Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) has been announced to tackle incidents of crime and antisocial behaviour there.

The PSPO establishes a Restricted Area stretching from the King’s Gap roundabout in Hoylake to Cubbins Green in West Kirby, and will empower police to, among other things, disperse gatherings of four or more people and bar them from entering the area for 24 hours. (The officer must only “reasonably believe” that a group intends to cause distress, harassment, or alarm to others in the future in order to warrant their dispersal.) It’s also an effective prohibition on face-coverings, with religious and medical exemptions. Anyone breaching the terms of the PSPO may face an on-the-spot fine of £100 or be liable for up to £1,000 if the case reaches the Magistrates’ Court.

Liberty, the civil rights advocacy group, says the “vague” definition of what PSPOs criminalise means they are “ripe for abuse”, and they have called for the government to scrap councils’ power to create PSPOs once and for all. Liberty criticises PSPOs specifically for criminalising rough sleeping via the back door, as happened in Worthing, Shepway, and Wrexham after PSPOs were introduced in 2014. Other non-criminal acts have been effectively outlawed by their introduction elsewhere. In 2016, Salford City Council brought in a PSPO that banned swearing (which was later scrapped, having been widely ridiculed); the same year, Gravesham Borough Council used the ordinance to prevent people from lying down in public.

Earlier this year, Wirral Council consulted residents about their own PSPO proposal. A whopping 78% of respondents said they’d experienced anti-social behaviour in the last 12 months. An even larger 90.8% said “yes” to supporting the PSPO’s implementation. Significantly, however, only 284 people out of a population of just over 13,000 ultimately shared their feelings on the measure.

So just what is going on West Kirby? Has the sleepy coastal village really become more like Gotham or Mega-City One? Or is this all just an overreaction by denizens of a town skittish about kids from elsewhere?

The PSPO went into effect on Monday, 28^th October. The following Wednesday was, of course, Mischief (or, colloquially, “Mizzy”) Night – that delightful holiday celebrated by Northern youth with pranks, vandalism, and even violence on Hallowe’en Eve. Naturally, that’s when I decided to pull on my PRESS-marked blue Kevlar and ballistic helmet, jump on the 437 bus, and poke about the benighted seaside town-turned-crime-riddled warzone. 

Alright, you caught me — I was actually wearing my favourite John Carpenter’s The Thing-themed T-shirt and jeans, but they were quite thick jeans…

Marine Lake walkway, West Kirby. Photo: Creative Commons

West Kirby is quiet by the time I arrive around 6:30pm, though perhaps this is just the calm before the storm. I speak with two elderly women out for a walk. They both say they were not part of the 78% who report having witnessed antisocial behaviour in their neighbourhoods — in fact, they’d never witnessed antisocial behaviour in West Kirby at all.

A local shop attendant says she’s never seen anything untoward either. “It’s mainly in the side streets,” she said. “Kids messing around with bins.”

Her colleague did once see young people hijack a double-decker while the driver was out vaping. All they did, apparently, was turn the lights on and off — “Nothing violent.”

In search of disorderly conduct or locals willing to talk about it, I continue down Banks Road, the main commercial street in West Kirby.  A 21-year-old barista who, like others I spoke with, asked not to be identified in this story, thinks the PSPO is mostly an overreaction. “There aren’t many places for young people around here, so they hang around in the parks and on Cubbins Green,” she says. "You never hear of any fights, though. I appreciate it is scary for older people sometimes when kids have balaclavas or hoods pulled tight, but I think it’s just kids being kids, really.” Before I leave, she tells me I should speak to the staff at the Wetherspoons as they’d probably have some stories to spill. Unfortunately for me, the Wetherspoons staff tell me they’re barred from speaking to journalists.

I come across two parked cars filled with young people by the marine lake. Both car stereos are blasting pop music, and I hear lots of shouting back and forth between the passengers. They don’t want to talk to me either. It’s the kind of scene that could be interpreted as intimidating, especially by middle-class or elderly residents. But, like the barista said, they aren’t actually doing anything wrong. And where are they meant to go?

I think about the Black Horse, the Hilbre Court, and “Dodgy” Rogers. In the 2000s, it was possible to get served if you were underage in some of these places — not that I’m advocating under-18s drinking. But as divey as those places could be, at least a pub is a structured environment where norms are socially enforced.

Regardless of what the law says, teenagers are going to figure out ways to get drunk; it’s just a question of where they do it. “I saw some girl, probably fourteen, fifteen, covered in sick outside the Morrisons,” says local resident Jess, 36. “I tried to help, but her friends [refused, saying] ‘she’s just drank too much, she’s just drank too much – we’ve rang her parents.’ That wasn’t the only time either.”

During our conversation, Jess initially echoes the barista’s sentiments that the PSPO was an overreaction. “The people who are likely to respond [to the consultation] – they’re likely to respond that way, aren’t they?” The old logic that you’re more likely to take to TripAdvisor if you’ve had a terrible meal than if you’ve had a good one.  

Even though she doesn’t think the PSPO was warranted, necessarily, Jess remembers her elderly next-door neighbour’s porch being vandalised. “We saw it through our Ring doorbell – first day we’d had it installed!”

Another episode Jess remembers (but didn’t witness) was a yob running in front of a woman’s car on Banks Road, causing the driver to stop, before another jumped on top of the windshield, breaking it. “Then there was the stabbing.”

On the 16^th June 2023, a teenage boy was stabbed on Cubbins Green, a gentle outcrop of grass above the beach favoured by dogwalkers. (He survived.) 15-year-old boy from Moreton and a 16-year-old boy from Liscard were arrested on suspicion, but Merseyside Police stated that "up to 100 youths" could have witnessed the attack. While an assault of that severity probably falls outside the bounds of mere “antisocial” behaviour, incidents like that linger in the local memory.

“Someone was [also] attacked next to the bus stop [on the same day],” says Rich, 33 – a bartender at The West Kirby Tap.

In his two years working there, however, Rich has only seen one fight which he had to break up – not unusual for bar staff dealing with drunken patrons. “But [those incidents] seem much more shocking in a place like West Kirby than it would be maybe in Birkenhead or other places,” he says. “People have this idea of West Kirby, that it’s supposed to be this quaint, silent town with no problems whatsoever.”

Does Rich think the PSPO is necessary? “The more draconian measures you put on people, you’re less likely to tackle the problem,” he says. ”Stopping people because they’re in a group of four or more is not necessarily going to tackle the issue which I think is more grounded in the fact [young] people don’t have a lot of an outlet.”

I put his point about youth-friendly areas to Jeff Green, leader of the Conservatives on Wirral Council, whose ward covers West Kirby. 

“I think there are some great spaces for young people in West Kirby,” he says. “There’s the youth club” — the West Kirby Youth Space, a provision offering a range of activities for young people aged 11 to 19 — “which is thriving; there’s a sports centre; there are parks; there is the prom; there’s the beach; there are coffee shops – all sorts of places where young people can mingle with each other and have a nice time.” Despite this, “there will always be, unfortunately, a group of people who think their desire to cause mayhem and enjoy themselves is more important than everyone else’s needs.”

Green points out that a PSPO was previously in place during COVID to tackle antisocial behaviour on Cubbins Green and in Ashton Park. He says there was “a very strong evidence base”, mentioning the windscreen-smashing incident. “I’m personally delighted that it’s been extended. My strong belief is that these requirements [of the PSPO] will support the police and help them deal with antisocial behaviour.”

What is it about West Kirby – an affluent area – that attracts this kind of behaviour?

“They probably come here because it’s the end of the line on the railway,” Jeff says about potential troublemakers. “Despite our constant pressuring of Merseyrail, there are still no barriers at the station. So it’s quite possible for people who want to cause trouble to jump the train, not pay for a ticket, and then spill into the town centre.” 

West Kirby’s railway station. Photo: Raymond Knapman/Creative Commons

My Mizzy Night excursion into West Kirby has yielded neither Clockwork Orange-style hijinks nor, as you might expect, any sign of a police presence. Perhaps the threat of the extended PSPO has already done its job without the need for patrol cars or street bobbies that are now rarer than hen’s teeth after 14 years of austerity. 

Thinking about Lisa Simpson’s rock that keeps tigers away, I walk to the bus stop. Behind that is the Concourse, where the Youth Space that Jeff cites as a place for young people to enjoy themselves closed hours ago. So did the sports centre and the coffee shops he mentioned. That leaves the parks, now pitch black, which were targeted by the original PSPO. And if the mischief-makers are indeed coming in by train, the problem may require a solution wider (and deeper) than a localised ordinance. Wayward youths — sometimes scores at a time — used to congregate at the Concourse in my day, police riot vans regularly being dispatched to break up the gatherings. Perhaps the problems West Kirby is facing — and the potential (over) reactions to them — are not as new as they appear.