Have we reached the last resort?

Sep 10 2007 by Larry Neild, Liverpool Daily Post

Is New Brighton about to rise like a phoenix with multi-million pound plans to transform the fading resort? Hardly, says City Editor Larry Neild, in his very personal view following a stroll along the prom

THE battle for New Brighton is set for its final showdown. “Space invaders” want to move in and occupy large swathes of waterfront land that command what must be some of the best and most dramatic views in England.

If the combined forces of Wirral Borough Council and its development allies win the battle, New Brighton’s equivalent of a Berlin Wall will separate the historic promenade from the Victorian township.

Last year, locals, armed with the equivalent of picks and shovels saw off the invasionary developers. Actually it was a government inspector, backed by the then secretary of state, who rejected the council’s plans for a massive £75m mixed development along the seafront at what is one of the few prized resorts in the North West of England.

The defeat was spectacular. But did the council and the developers wave the white flag? Of course not. Bloodied and battered by the onslaught of hostile words in government speak, they retreated to a safe distance, re-grouped and drew up a new line of attack.

Forget Normandy, the New Brighton landings are about to begin.

But the New Brighton irregulars – a mixed bunch of locals desperate to preserve and save their community – are already digging the trenches in the sand, ready for the new skirmish.

The deadline has passed for objections to be lodged to the new scheme by developer Neptune, though objectors can still voice their opinions when the scheme is debated later this year by the planning committee.

I wonder whether locals would be better saving their energy. The decision – a resounding yes – is guaranteed. Sadly.

If Wirral Council gave its universal backing to the first, and much-criticised, scheme that was chucked out last year, the councillors will be wetting themselves with excitement over the new, amended plan.

They will insist that the developer has responded to the comments made by the inspector who last year rejected the first plans. The marine lake has been spared and the blocks of Soviet-style flats have disappeared from this scheme.

But an awful, ugly supermarket will still be plonked on a priceless plot of land. The fact that a casino, bingo hall and budget hotel will also be put there doesn’t make things better. It adds to the total spoiling of New Brighton. To rub sea salt into the wound, the whole lot will go up on the site of the once magnificent outdoor swimming pool, sadly demolished in the early 1990s.

The resort lost its tower that put Blackpool in the shade, the Tower Ballroom went, and so did the magnificent pier that ferried hundreds of thousands across the river.

If the councillors had eyes to see, they would realise that New Brighton has the potential to rise from the ashes of its past glories to become a lucrative playground for more than a million Merseysiders.

They want to come to New Brighton for the openness, the fresh air, the views, not to race around a Morrison’s looking for buy-one-get-one-free bargains. They can do that nearer to home.

The Northwest Regional Development Agency hit the nail on the head in a report it commissioned a few years ago about the region’s coastal resorts.

This is what the NWDA – normally the driver of development – had to say: “Some resorts have allowed supermarket developments on prominent seafront sites, instantly spoiling their sense of place. Buildings constructed in the past 30 years have nearly all been of mediocre quality and have, in the end, probably done more to harm to resorts than good by diminishing their sense of place.”

Look no further than the disfigurement of Southport to realise what the report was trying to say.

No disrespect to Morrisons, but you hardly see judges from RIBA dribbling at the architecture of modern supermarkets.

Indeed, a survey carried out by researchers from the University of Liverpool revealed that almost nine out of 10 visitors surveyed felt a supermarket on the seafront would decrease their enjoyment of New Brighton.

People, the survey showed, go to the resort for the fresh air (an increasingly rare commodity these days), the views (spectacular as they are) and open spaces, the marine lake and the fact that it’s a cheap day out.

Admittedly, New Brighton is no Disneyworld, nor is it an Alton Towers or a Blackpool.

But in an age when awareness of global warming is growing, it could well be at the edge of a new chapter in its history. Within a few years, when motoring becomes a luxury, more and more families will want to escape to places closer to home, like New Brighton, to soak up the fresh air and everything that a resort has to offer. They will be deterred by a concrete and brick barrier, masquerading as a supermarket.

The inspector last time spoke of the risk of altering the character of the place in a way that actually drove tourists away, rather than attracted them.

Nobody, particularly the locals opposed to the re-drawn scheme, would argue that leisure facilities need to be enhanced and extended in New Brighton. Since when has supermarket shopping been a leisure activity?

To borrow an often-used phrase in the retail world, when it’s gone it’s gone. I have little doubt that the councillors of Wirral will not have the foresight, or the courage, to enhance New Brighton in a way that preserves its special ness and character.

But I hope that a foresighted government minister will clasp the plans, roll them up, place them in a bottle and dispatch it deep into Davy Jones’s locker, never to emerge again. New Brighton does have a bright future, but not as a shoppers’ paradise.

larryneild@dailypost.co.uk

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