What did Merseyside get from the government’s Levelling Up fund?
Two projects got big money funding — and plenty of local leaders were left frustrated. Plus: Everton have just sacked Frank Lampard
Dear readers — thanks for all your emails, tweets and tips following our investigation into the Eldonian Village in Vauxhall at the weekend, a pioneering and once award-winning social housing project that has descended into paranoia, heartache and the mysterious sales of community assets offshore. It was a story five months in the making and one that caused as much stress at Post HQ as any before it. “A devastating read and excellent piece of journalism,” read one tweet. “A great piece and a terrible example of how a dream became a nightmare,” said another.
Over 100 of you shared that piece and many more signed up as paid members of The Post, taking us steaming past the 800 member mark ahead with all the thrust, vim and glory of brand new Merseyrail train (except, ahead of schedule). The cherry on top: for a few glorious hours the Liverpool Reddit page looked like this…
Today’s big story looks at the government’s latest round of Levelling Up funding, which has handed big cheques to two local councils in this neck of the woods and has gone down like a cup of cold sick with others. We’ll be examining those wins and losses, as well as the rest of a packed-out briefing.
Last week paying members received two great pieces. On Tuesday, Edward Haynes tried to untangle the Edge Hill of old (a place of huge significance in the country’s industrial story) with the Edge Hill of today (a place with the eighth least used of Merseyside’s 80 railway stations). “Once again the Post has hit the spot. Criticism, tempered with wit and empathy,” said one wise commenter.
Then on Thursday David Lloyd sourced the knowledge of seven local minds (a genius chef, a creative powerhouse, a spoken word poet, and so on) to consider how Liverpool can make the most of its moment in the sun with Eurovision, asking what we do well and what we do not so well. Here’s a snippet from PJ Smith aka Roy (the spoken word poet), talking about the latter:
“The macho bullshit culture that passes down through the ages. It’s generational. Why the misplaced loyalty to this culture? Confused young men choosing the wrong examples to follow. If you’re following people who are focused on status, wealth, crime, violence and keeping up appearances...it’s not going to end well.”
Editor’s note: Since last Monday’s briefing The Post has gained 35 new paid members and it's amazing to watch this community grow like it is. Our weekend read about the Eldonian Village was an example of the kind of story we want to be doing more of, but doing so with a very small team on a shoestring budget isn’t easy. If you haven’t joined as a paying member yet, and you’re able to contribute to the continuation of our project to bring back the kind of journalism Merseyside needs, consider taking out a subscription for just £7 a month.
This week’s weather
Monday ☁️ Light cloud and a gentle breeze with highs of 7°C
Tuesday ☁️ Light cloud and light winds with highs of 8°C
Wednesday 🌧️ Light rain and a moderate breeze with highs of 10°C
Thursday 🌥️ Sunny intervals and a gentle breeze with highs of 8°C
Friday ☁️ Light cloud and light winds with highs of 7°C
Weekend ☁️ Light cloud and a gentle breeze with highs of 8°C
This week’s weather forecast is sourced from BBC Weather and it’s for Liverpool.
The big story: Slim pickings from the government’s Levelling Up fund
Top line: The government’s latest round of levelling up funding has provoked dismay across Merseyside as multiple key bids for deprived areas were rejected. Metro mayor Steve Rotheram labelled the process a "Conservative beauty contest". But was it all bad news?
The winners? Despite elsewhere disappointment, two Merseyside projects did walk away with significant funding. St Helens Council picked up £20 million to boost Earlestown's town centre regeneration and Knowsley was awarded upwards of £15m for Halewood.
The Earlestown funding will go towards the restoration of the Grade II-listed town hall and market square, as well as significant improvements to Earlestown Rail Station. The belief is that by re-establishing Earlestown as a traditional market town footfall will increase and vitality will return. It’s much needed.
Meanwhile Halewood's money will be used to improve sporting and leisure facilities, as well as the “walkability” of the town. Knowsley council leader Graham Morgan said it was an “exciting time for Halewood and its residents”.
The losers? Wirral’s bid for £30 million to regenerate Liscard’s floundering town centre — where 6% of households are deprived in four or more dimensions — was knocked back. With a £30 million budget deficit to address, and domestic abuse support and library closures currently being examined as areas where cutbacks might have to be made, the prospect of the council itself digging out funds for Liscard is a fanciful one. As council leader Janette Williamson told us back in October: “We can’t trim the fat, there isn’t any fat, there isn’t even any bone”.
Meanwhile Bootle’s bid for its highly ambitious Bootle-Strand regeneration project was rejected too, despite Bootle ranking as one of the poorest towns in the country. Sefton council leader Ian Maher was far from happy about it:
"Sadly, this is yet another slap in the face for local people which represents neither a 'stepping up', 'gauging up' or 'enhancing communities', no matter what this government wants its MPs to call it."
Furthermore, bids in Liverpool for Paddington Village and Everton (which would have been mostly spent on Great Homer Street Market) were also turned down, as well as a £20 million project to revamp Huyton town centre.
Andrew Carter, the chief executive at think tank Centre for Cities, points out that, amid the “outrage” about where money has been allocated, the amount of money allocated has gone overlooked. Only £2 billion has been distributed in this round of funding. “If the government (any government) was serious about levelling-up, the fund would be much (much) bigger,” he said. It’s a fair argument — Liverpool City Council alone has lost over a quarter of that amount in funding over the past 10 years.
The government said all bids had been subject to a "rigorous assessment" and that the fund would be used to “[invest] in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, spreading opportunity to historically overlooked areas.”
Criticism was directed at the government when it transpired that Richmond, Rishi Sunak’s own constituency in Yorkshire, picked up £19 million of funding.
When pressed on this perceived injustice by LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Michael Gove denied the connection to the Prime Minister was a factor, saying the money was to transform Catterick, one of the country’s largest infantry bases. “The money is going to go to make sure the neighbourhood in which service families live is invested in appropriately,” he said.
However, analysis by the Guardian found that Conservative marginal seats (which were won by majorities of fewer than 8,000 votes in 2019) have received 1.5 times the funding per person than all other constituencies under Levelling Up — £76 a head compared with £53 a head.
Bottom line: The government’s Levelling Up policy — a huge vote winner in 2019 — is now coming under even huger scrutiny, for its lack of ambition and the way in which it decides who gets funding. Labour Levelling Up shadow minister Lisa Nandy bemoaned the “Hunger Games-style contest” councils were made to engage in to fight for bids, and many now want to see further devolution instead, with councils taking greater control of spending powers away from Whitehall civil servants. But will a Labour government actually deliver that kind of change? We wait and see.
Your Post briefing
The aftermath of boxer Liam Smith’s knockout fourth round victory against Chris Eubank has been mired by an argument over Smith’s homophobic pre-fight comments. In the build up to the fight, Smith — who was born in Liverpool and trained at Rotunda ABC in Kirkdale as a teenager — drew widespread criticism for asking: "You go on about girls, has anybody in this room ever seen you with a girl? You got something to tell us?” In response Eubank wore a rainbow LGBT armband to the weigh-in and the charity Stonewall urged the British Boxing Board of Control to take action against Smith. Smith has since apologised to Eubank, and said: “I'm not homophobic in any way, shape or form.” Former Liverpool centre back Jamie Carragher has today been criticised for posting a celebratory photo on Twitter with Smith after the fight.
Everton manager Frank Lampard has been sacked following a dismal run of form. Everton are second from bottom in the league and have lost 11 times in their last 14 matches, with fans staging a series of protests in recent weeks. Lampard leaves the club as its second least successful manager in Premier League history, although given the mounting off-field drama many believe Everton’s issues run far deeper than the managerial post.
Emergency care patients are “at risk of harm” at University Hospital Aintree according to the Care Quality Commission (CQC), due to a lack of nursing and support staff. The CCQ found numerous issues from the lack of staff to waiting times that did not meet national standards and “a risk staff did not always recognise or respond appropriately to signs of deteriorating health”. The criticisms mirror many of those expressed by doctors at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, who recently wrote a letter detailing their frustration at their inability to adequately provide care for patients. Aintree Hospital was not rated by the CCQ following the inspection, so its previous rating of “requires improvement” remains.
The Post’s war on botanical genocide goes from strength to strength as — two weeks on from our long-read about the threat to Croxteth’s historic collection of plants — West Derby MP Ian Byrne paid them a visit. Byrne may act a bit frosty with us when we meet him, but it’s good that he’s willing to act on our journalism all the same. In our piece, which detailed how the 200 year old collection (including some of the rarest species in the country) was set to be scrapped in March, the council told us that “unfortunately the botanical collection has depleted over the decades, to the point that only a few rare plants remain.” After the piece, they backtracked and pledged to keep it alive, with Byrne’s visit the latest sign of newfound intent to protect the plants. “What an untapped, breathtaking asset for West Derby, our great city & indeed nation,” he tweeted. If you’ve got a plant collection of huge historic significance that needs protecting and you’re looking for some muscle, drop a line to editor@livpost.co.uk.
Home of the week
Luxuriate on one of Merseyside’s finest balconies with this £570,000 Southport home. It’s got four bedrooms, three bathrooms, two patio terraces and is only a short walk from Hesketh Park, known for its wild birds and waterfall. Click here for details.
Post Picks
🇨🇳 Trace the history of Europe’s oldest Chinatown at a new photo exhibition at Liverpool Central Library. A sad tale of neglect has left Chinatown in need of a facelift in recent years, but the new exhibition — part of extensive Lunar New Year celebrations — offers rich insights into the history of the Sino–Liverpudlian story. Read up on the full details with this link.
🥃 Celebrate Robert Burns well south of the border at whisky bar HopScotch, who have teamed with Scale on Kempston Street to host a traditional Burns Night Supper. The evening will include a three course meal, whisky, and, of course, bagpipes. Admission is £48.
🍳 Fancy brushing shoulders with giants? The top dog on the council, Labour leader Liam Robinson, will be joining Downtown in Business for breakfast on Thursday at Gaucho Liverpool to talk all things policy and (presumably) business as he eats his hash browns. It’s a free event but tickets are limited and running low.
💃Transport yourself back into ‘70s New York at Melodic Bar and Coffee on Thursday night as LIPA’s Yee Ting teaches you how to do ‘the hustle’, a fixture of the Big Apple’s ballrooms and nightclubs half a century ago. It’s billed as a unique way to keep fit and learn a new dance, drawing inspiration from other styles such as salsa, hip hop, house and vogue. Tickets are £8.
Our favourite reads
“It is too charitable to describe Everton as a club in crisis. A crisis can be solved with the right people in charge,” starts this Guardian long-read about the club’s descent into civil war. Such is the extent of the issues circulating at Everton, their hideous on-field record which has left them in a relegation battle midway through the season isn’t even the headline story. Past weeks have seen accusations that sanctioned “pro-Kremlin oligarch” (in the EU’s words) Alisher Usmanov has historically dictated club policy above on-paper owner Farhad Moshiri and that Moshiri himself has dictated managerial policy above now-ex manager Frank Lampard. In past weeks the fans have begun to revolt, with threats of violence and alleged misogynistic abuse aimed at executives. What comes next is anyone’s guess.
“Why do young people join gangs?” asks this 2019 piece in The Conversation by Rob Hesketh, a lecturer in Criminal Justice at John Moores University. Beyond the commonly stated reasons — social factors, homelife issues or the desire to fit in — Hesketh explores a more uncomfortable motivation: the allure of risk taking. Also known as “illegal “edgework”, Hesketh, who spoke to dozens of gang members in Merseyside during his research, describes the intense heightened emotional feelings people can experience whilst committing crimes. He talks about how this can provide an antidote to the disenfranchisement and banality of life in deprived areas, especially on the back of around a decade of cuts. Fancy hearing more from Hesketh? You’re in luck. Here’s Mollie’s chat with him.
If you, like most, have no interest in spending your free time jumping between rooftops or sliding down public handrails, then do so vicariously instead with this Big Issue North piece about Airborn Academy, a parkour centre in Liverpool. Parkour is a niche pastime where “practitioners navigate outdoor urban landscapes using a combination of jumps, rolls, vaults, swings and climbs”. The Liverpool centre had 700 people through the door on the first day, according to director and coach Ryan Doyle. And where exactly might success in the world of parkour lead you, you might wonder? “I ended up being a stunt double for Ellen DeGeneres and had permission to climb and jump on everything I wanted at Universal Studios in Florida,” Doyle says. “The catch was I had to shave my legs and wear a bra.”
Photo of the week
Interesting sartorial choices as ambulance workers picket outside Aintree University Hospital. Thousands of members of various unions are walking out across England and Wales today as part of continued industrial action in the health service. Photo by Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images.
Letters from readers
Really interesting article and although I knew Edge Hill station had once been far busier I didn't realise it was originally effectively the main terminus for the city. I might be wrong, but I'd always understood "Getting off at Edge Hill" to be a euphemism for Coitus Interruptus, the extremely unreliable contraceptive method also known as Vatican Roulette, rather than an unsatisfactory encounter per se, ‘Getting of at Edge Hill,’ Simon Jones
I can’t add anything other than a sense of disappointment. I used to walk around the place on my lunch break when I worked in that part of town. It was a lovely peaceful place — rough and ready, but with a real sense of community. A great shame it’s come to this, ‘First there were anonymous letters. Then the floodgates opened’, Mick Kelly
I would like to thank the post, especially Jack, firstly for publishing the story regarding the problems on the Eldonians when local papers like the echo had shunned it for over 12 months and secondly for the confidence you gave back to the community in shining the light on the darkness that was consuming the community regards Brian Jones
Thought the Prime Minister's constituency was Richmond in Yorkshire and not on the bank of the River Thames !! Hence the money for Catterick Camp