New Ferry in Bloom

Over the years Wirral Leaks readers have sent us some marvellous pictures with all the pathos and precision of a Martin Parr  photographic exhibition.

Our latest valued contributor provides us with the following  photos of New Ferry accompanied by this message :

I took these yesterday in New Ferry. These are only a few examples, there are more “planters” placed there by God knows who. I had previously spoken to one of the remaining business owners, and whilst she said they looked nice, she did not believe any of the garbage spouted by elected officials (local or national) that New Ferry would rise from the ashes. I agree with her…

 

Whilst we applaud anyone who tries to prettify a bombsite we can only agree that judging by these pictures it will be a long time before New Ferry goes from boom to boom town!…

New Ferry,Old Tricks Part 3

 

So here’s another campaign we’re willing to support –  ‘Justice for New Ferry’ 

From Cllr Jo Bird’s Facebook page announcing the campaign comes this catty response from Cllr Janette ‘Ex-Milly Tant’ Williamson:

Meow!

Apparently there’s only room for one Queen B in the Labour Cabinet and it ain’t Ms Bird! So much for the socialist sistahood!…

Meanwhile Justice for New Ferry campaigner Christopher Lee-Power (what a great name) tells us :

On 10 December 2018. Wirral Council announced a new hardship fund “£200,000” for the New Ferry victims of the blast. The criteria would be different from other hardship funds, such as the Local Welfare Assistance scheme,

As a victim along with others who have suffered for two years since the New Ferry Explosion was shocked to read in an email from Cllr Pat Hackett which reserved, that they would not be able to meet us victims until after a meeting about  how they should spend the £200,000 that had been allocated by the previous council.

As victims, we were led to believe that this fund had been allocated as a Hardship Fund for the victims of the New Ferry Explosion.   “Earlier this month, the council approved £200,000 to support residents and businesses affected by the explosion.”   https://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/17518576.into-the-light-to-mark-second-anniversary-of-new-ferry-explosion/

Justice For New Ferry which has been set up by our community wrote to Pat Hackett requesting that we could meet with him to discuss the fund as we had heard that it would not be used for the victims as mentioned in the press but allocated to others. As you appreciate we needed to find out if this was true as the victims have had a difficult journey over the last 2 years and financially it has had a huge impact on us all. To be told that there would be hardship fund for us victims and then they do a U-turn is heartbreaking.

Pat wrote back saying that we could meet after they had discussed the fund. To schedule a meeting with the victims after discussing the allocation of £200,000 is just ridiculous  The council is making a decision before meeting with those affected.

This needs to be looked into.

We’ll do our best but the only power that Wirral Council usually adhere to is the abuse of…

New Ferry,Old Tricks Part 2

Two years after the event here we have Wirral South MP Alison McGovern speaking in the House of Commons at a full adjournment debate and making the case for government funding to help the people of New Ferry following the devastation caused by an explosion.

This is the response of Tory MP Jake Berry :

Meanwhile as we can see below it would seem that it’s an ill explosion that blows no good with our old friends North West Construction UK Ltd getting the lion’s share of Wirral Council spend on the aftermath of the New Ferry disaster. Other interesting expenditure includes Bam Nuttall and Siemens Mobility Limited – but we’ll return to that another time.

Consequently a victim of the New Ferry blast contacts us and with a mix of exasperation and desperation tells us:

Either Jake is misleading the public or Wirral Borough Council are misleading him!

Can you help us at all?  This is a disgrace devastated by the lies to the public making people think we are being helped. Help us. Please help us. This could happen to anyone they say lessons must be learnt from our devastation. Wirral Council are about to shaft us again we have fought for 2 years. 2 years they have treated us like something they have stood in.The money that the council told the government would go directly to the victims is not to be discussed with the victims but now earmarked for community groups. And the new council are not prepared to meet with us until the 200k has been discussed and allocated…

The recovered spend tells a story all of its own. This is money claimed back from victims who all received bills. They were never told this would ever have to be paid for. They helped one particular business but no one else. It’s all very distressing. We all needed help…

And so it would appear that we have the usual Wirral Council story of making a disaster out of a disaster.We can’t help feeling that if perhaps the explosion had been a couple of miles up the road in Birkenhead the response from Wirral Council would  have been very different in terms of expediency and being responsive to the needs of local people.  

New Ferry, Old Tricks – Part 1

Despite recent TV coverage which showed the victims of the 2017 New Ferry explosion showing some of that Dunkirk spirit in the face of adversity it would seem that our old adversary Wirral Council are doing everything they can to bayonet their ambitions to resurrect the devastated area.

We can tell that when the distressed victims of the New Ferry explosion are getting increasingly frustrated with Wirral Council and get in touch with us for help.

So kudos to newly elected Labour councillor Jo Bird who has put the New Ferry case  to new Labour ‘leader’ Cllr Pat Hackett :

Spot the wannabe politician as Hackett responds :

Dear Jo,

Thank you for the email. As I am sure you can imagine Cabinet members have a really busy agenda over the next few weeks, which includes policy and officer meetings and training.

Please be assured that New Ferry is high on our list of priorities.

We are due to debate a report in a months time around how to spend the £200,000 that was allocated by the previous Cabinet.

Given all the above I suggest we schedule any meeting for after the report has been discussed and a decision made around how to spend the funding.

As I said the report is due in one month, I will contact you again after this time.

Many thanks
Pat

Cllr Pat Hackett
Wirral Council – Leader
New Brighton Ward
Telephone: 07771972302
Email: pathackett@wirral.co.uk

Wirral Leaks response :  The new ‘leader’ of Wirral Council likes underlining/patronising doesn’t he? Let’s call him ‘Patronising Pat’ from here on in shall we kids?

Feel free to call both of them on their mobiles btw. After all they both are public servants and should be directly answerable to the people of Wirral after all – and wouldn’t that be a refreshing change boys and girls? And what’s more you probably pay their phone bills anyway…

Part 2 tomorrow. Oh! it is tomorrow. Apologies – Part 2 on this slow moving but significant story will arrive shortly …

 

Mooney News and New Ferry Blues

Inevitably news filters through to us that born again Corbyn fan Cllr Bernie ‘The Bruiser’ Mooney scraped by in last week’s Wallasey CLP selection battle winning by 3 votes (21 against 18).

We’d previously reported in our  Raise the Red Flag story that Mooney may have jumped the gun  by extolling her own virtues in correspondence sent to party  members telling them ,among other things, that :

One of my proudest achievements as a councillor has been to secure £500,000 from the City Region in high street funding for Liscard.

Mooney had said she wanted to remove the Liscard one-way system and re-install the roundabout with this £500k! There were also concerns that a political ally was contacting potential voters and deploying some ‘friendly persuasion’ for them to vote  for Mooney. As it was such a close contest and as apparently such ‘canvassing’ is against party rules there are some Wallasey Constituency  Labour Party  (CLP) members who are less than happy with the result. A  message from a Wallasey CLP  insider reads :

If it’s found out that somebody was telephoning people the result could be void… here’s to a new road system, new houses built where now stands a perfectly solid building (Dominick House) and lots of business for Liscard… all with £500,000 or £200,000 if you take away the consultant’s fee 😣

Meanwhile someone  in New Ferry  has contacted us with some very valid points about the £500K dished out by the City Region :

Earlier this year I noticed workmen carrying out re-paving work in New Ferry from the area near Griffiths Butchers upto around Underley Terrace. The standard of work was pathetic, and Council staff have marked some of the shoddy work with the white paint treatment. For some reason they have not marked all the shoddy work, perhaps that would bring the fiasco to peoples attention. I do not know if the workers were from the council or private contractors, but if this is how Wirral Borough Council wastes money, no wonder the Government is reluctant to give the council money.

I’ve been to New Ferry today and took a few photos.I am only doing this as your site showed a councillor bragging about Liscard getting £500,000  from some Regional Fund to regenerate the area. Shame New Ferry is still waiting. Obviously an area blown to bits is not as high priority as Liscard…

Looking at the pictures and knowing what we know about the New Ferry disaster  and the need to regenerate the shopping area it does make you wonder whether the decision to hand the money to Liscard rather than New Ferry was more about politics than priorities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond The Green Belt Lies The Plight of ‘The Bombsite’

Quite rightly it has been brought to our attention that whilst the Green Belt furore continues across Wirral there is a place on the peninsula that appears to have been all but forgotten. Yes, we’re talking about New Ferry or ‘The Bombsite’ as locals have taken to calling the area devastated by a gas blast in March 2017.

Several people have pointed us in the direction of an excellent analysis of the history of the disaster and current distressing situation. We recommend that if you’re interested and you should be – Wirral is not all about wildflower meadows, dingly dells and bluebell woods ,there are Brownfield sites that need just as much attention as your beloved Green Belt – you need to check out this excellent report which is based upon the presentation given to James Brokenshire, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, on 5th September 2018, as residents and traders met with him at Westminster. The aim of the presentation was to illustrate to the minister that the explosion had been massively understated and underfunded, and that since no government assistance had been received, the victims and the community have been left for 18 months with no hope for recovery, and that now government should step in and help.

The New Ferry / Port Sunlight explosion WAS of the scale that warranted government assistance, and the research conducted and presented in this report proves that.

Video made with PowerPoint. Please press pause on each slide to read the content.

What we particularly applaud is the fact that there are people out there who are committed to making where they live a better place and make the effort to bring to the attention the facts ,the reality and the lived experience of those directly affected by the blast to those who can make a difference. Whilst we understand that local Labour MP Alison McGovern has been particularly supportive of the plight of the people of New Ferry/Port Sunlight we have to ask whether the ruling Labour administration at Wirral Council could have done more to highlight the desperate situation or are their priorities more about distributing misinformation about the Green Belt to support proposals for a golf resort which is far,far away ,not only geographically but ideologically, from the the people of New Ferry who contributed to voting them into power. Just sayin’…

 

Wirral Leaks Weekly Dispatch #12

WHAT A WASTE

We’d like to thank the Wirral Leaks reader who sent us the above snapshot which is supposed to represent what Wirral life is like after you’ve made an additional payment over and above your council tax for Wirral Council to deal with your waste . It made us ask ourselves why we ever left Wirral and then we remembered amongst many other things that nepotism , undue deference and general subservience wasn’t for us.

Whilst it seems to be a case of ‘another week, another advertisement feature’ in Wirral Globe it really makes us wonder what made Wirral Globe so popular with Wirral Council all of a sudden – especially when they’ve got their own sewage outlet with Wirral View. Perhaps someone can enlighten us. Oh , wait a minute , they already have!

What’s more we were told :

It’s US-sourced stock photo library time again in Wallasey. This scene of glamorous young people at a barbecue in Tranmere is so typical of life round here.

https://mailchi.mp/wirral/wirrals-garden-waste-club-11th-april?e=c5e90571ae

Ain’t it just! We thought it was just us who didn’t buy the happy,shiny, ethnically diverse people malarkey! Lazy,unimaginative,insensitive and out of touch with reality – yes, that’s Wirral Council folks!

As for the comment on the right of our picture which reads ‘paper is inside’ shouldn’t that be ‘ paper is on the inside’ …….of the ‘Inner Ring’ that is. What a difference a tape makes! Just sayin’ !

SPRIGGS HAS SPRUNG

Keeping the seasonal theme it would appear that not only has spring has sprung so has Cllr Christine Spriggs – sprung into action that is after last week’s post where we questioned the lack of activity when it came to Wirral Council’s  Imagine Wirral programme. Subsequently a Wirral Leaks observer wrote to us to say :

Further strange odd coincidences… you will recall my email to you when I mentioned that there had been nil activity on the Imagine Wirral twitter account since its Feb 18th launch date….

And then of course (yesterday?) you posted a comment about Imagine Wirral – and asked a question to Cllr Christine Spriggs….

But then guess what? The Imagine Wirral Twitter account suddenly appears to have lots of activity on it… and guess who’s ‘tweets’ are very prominent?

Of course just an ‘odd’ coincidence…                            .

And here is another photo from elsewhere…from a couple of ‘election’ days ago.Haha

 

FROM A BANG TO A WHIMPER

We’ve been asked what questions you should ask those smiley people with rosettes (do they still wear rosettes?) currently interrupting your favourite TV programme. That’s up to you and what you feel is important to you ,your family and community – potholes? dog crap? litter? incompetence,dishonesty and corruption? However one reader has made the following suggestion :

My dear Lordship,

In this time of local elections I have been confused by silence. Only a week ago it was reported that the government were allocating a million pounds to the businesses of central Salisbury following the alleged Russian poisoning scandal. This was to support the local shopkeepers who had lost trade due to the tourists and locals steering a wide berth from the town centre.

I seem to remember there is another centre of a town on the Wirral that people are currently steering a wide berth from due to the fact, “It no longer exists, having been blown to bits”.

The good people of New Ferry are probably too shocked following the explosive nature of the incident to ask the question.

And what is the question you may ask?

Why is there no indignation from the local MP’s and councillors in regard to this matter. Or as in the case of a certain former Eastham school, is the land earmarked for a super housing development. Just asking your Lordship?

Regards

AND FINALLY…….. FROM INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE TO DEMENTIA CARE VILLAGE

Meanwhile it’s a case of another week, another artist’s impression!

We still haven’t had a grovelling apology from Wirral Council about Wirral Waters and how they were duped by a Hong Kong bankrupt by the name of Stella Shiu and wasted thousands of £££££’s on far eastern jaunts in the hope of financing an ‘International Trade Centre’ . Instead it would appear we’re getting a ‘Dementia Care Village’ that is reminiscent of East German brutalist architecture from the 1970’s !

Whilst there is still a prize to be had for the person who tells us whatever happened to the portrait of Shiu that hung adjacent to the Wirral Council CEO’s office ,perhaps the Deputy Leader of Wirral Council Cllr George Davies can finally admit that Shiu was “ bloody useless….” . Or perhaps not!

 

 

 

Bank Holiday Bulletin Board

With His Lord and Ladyship still on what the latter lamentably calls a ‘vacay’ the faithful retainers at Leaky Towers have been asked to publicise the following in their absence.

Firstly we’ve been asked to give 2 local petitions some exposure:

https://www.change.org/p/wirral-council-stop-development-on-bidston-hill?utm_source=embedded_petition_view

The so called “LEISURE PENINSULA ” council want to sell off  land Bidston Hill for housing

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/funding-for-new-ferry-gas-explosion

The decision of no government funding to re-build NEW FERRY – central government may be selective when it comes to funding such disasters but from what we’ve seen we  have to say Wirral Council don’t seem to be cognizant about how such disaster funding actually works.

Secondly here’s a reminder and further news about the Defend Our NHS Wirral meeting on September 7th

Dear friends of the NHS

This is to remind you of our public meeting in Birkenhead on Thursday 7^th September.

We’re pleased to say that we will be joined by national campaigner Steve Carne talking about the STPs and NHS reinstatement.

The need to share information and alert the public is ever more urgent. Please circulate this message and the attachment. The NHS is on its knees and we need to fight desperately to save it.

Please see the revised notice for the meeting, which is attached, and this welcome news below from the Latest edition of Private Eye. The STPs are now called in true George Orwell style ‘sustainability and transformation partnerships’. ‘And’, by the way, is the only word in that title which does not mean the opposite of what it says:

·      ‘Sustainable’ = slashed budgets and services.

·      ‘Transformed’ = cut, demoralised and damaged beyond recognition.

·      ‘Partnership’ = developed in secret, operating in secret, condemned by local councils, a total lack of public/patient consultation, and the only happy partners are Richard Branson and a series of US ‘healthcos’.

 The STPs must be stopped, opposed, reversed and the damage undone.

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting, to which ALL Wirral councillors and MPs are being invited.

Best wishes on behalf of DONHS

More about STPs? http://www.stopthestps.org.uk/home/4593142849

More about DONHS? https://www.facebook.com/groups/defendournhs/

Election Selection : Week 8

Labour groupies Cllr Chris Meaden and Cllr Janette Williamson admire Frankenfield’s red braces and his homage to 1980’s wankers, sorry, bankers and the glory days of Thatcherism. Pic courtesy of Wirral Globe 

We don’t know how you feel but this has seemed to be the longest 8 weeks of our lives. At last we can get back to moaning about the weather and Wirral Council.

Our interest in national politics only extends to how it affects the local political landscape. By which we mean Frank Field  – obvs. For as we know Frankenfield is the de facto political leader on Wirral. Let’s face it –  McGovern , Eagle and Greenwood are mere also-rans in Wirral’s political stakes.

With Merseyside totally in the red  when it comes to local politics – from the Metro Mayor and his cabinet to all council leaders and constituency MPs and the Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Jane Kennedy there is an unprecedented concentration of  power invested in one party. Whilst that is the democratic right of the people, it scares us to death, not only because it suggests there is no effective opposition but primarily that some of the people who wield power are just so bloody awful.

But it’s not all bad news – with a hung parliament and with fox-hunting enthusiast Theresa May now experiencing what it’s like to be hunted by the ruthless and privileged ( i.e her own party) it would appear that there could be another general election on the horizon (*sighs* all round at Leaky Towers).

This of course would mean another bumper pay day for Wirral Council’s Returning Officer Eric ‘Feeble’ Robinson who as we know must be struggling on his £180K + salary which is supplemented by the bumper pay outs amounting to tens of thousands of pounds he receives for declaring the seemingly never ending round of elections.

Hey Eric – any more thoughts on donating your bonus to supporting local charities or foodbanks or the New Ferry explosion fundraising efforts like a former Wirral Council Chief Executive used to do?

No – thought not!

 

His Lordship Makes An Announcement

Live from Leaky Towers we proudly present an important  press statement from His Lordship :

‘After serious consideration and stumping up the £500 election deposit by selling some of the family silver I have resolved to stand as the Leaky Party candidate at the next General Election.

Of course this will mean I will have to relinquish my title and forego the afternoon snoozes in the House of Lords – not to mention the expenses.

Newly appointed Wirral Leaks Press Officer Ms. McCalamity whispers in ear : ‘ I thought we agreed it would be best if you didn’t actually mention your expenses at all ! Remember that little problem you had explaining the gold-plated trouser press and the appointment of your own personal nobbler, sorry ,cobbler claiming you were only trying to emulate the incumbent MP for Birkenhead ?’ – https://order-order.com/2009/10/19/is-frank-field-really-so-saintly/

However from now I will be a commoner and appropriately enough I will be standing in the Birkenhead Constituency. For the duration of my campaign I will be known simply as Julian ( McCalamity whispers in ear) . Oh yes , we’ve agreed on a bit of rebranding and that to maximise the youth vote I will be going by name ‘Joolz’ and my election tagline will be ‘Joolz 4 Birko’ .

Her Ladyship is already busily preparing to become Birkenhead’s First Lady – as opposed to Wirral Chamber of Commerce CEO Paula Basnett who is Birkenhead First’s Lady . Because as everyone knows behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes and running the show!

The Leaky Party will be standing on a platform of  investing and supporting public services , promoting openness,transparency and accountability, refusing to reward failure with public money, preventing the appointment of overpaid consultants, promoting meritocracy and rejecting cronyism , barring BS and spurning spin. Oh and whilst we’re at it stopping ‘Returning Officer’ payments at elections – if ever there is case of the undeserving rich it is Eric ‘ Feeble’ Robinson pocketing another 15 grand just before the summer hols. C’mon Eric – do as one of your predecessors once did and donate this unwarranted perk to charity . Might we suggest adding this election windfall to fundraising efforts for victims of the New Ferry  gas explosion. Put OUR money where the need is!

So in conclusion as I launch our campaign I say to the people of Wirral ( and particularly Birkenhead)  – let’s all rise up together and be something more than pitiers of the poor and do something more than promote ourselves,our friends and our own personal agendas.

Let the political games begin……’