WHEN Neil Scales took charge of Merseytravel passenger transport executive 10 years ago, he could not have dreamed he would be curating animated model TV characters.
However, as his expanding empire moves inexorably into the leisure sector, he is proud to welcome the Wallace & Gromit Exhibition to Seacombe from this week for a year.
Also, the irony is not lost on the Merseytravel chief executive that, after fighting for years to bring modern trams to Liverpool, Merseytravel bought the recreated old Birkenhead Tramway and Wirral Transport Museum, in Taylor Street.
The acquisition deal with Wirral Borough Council also includes Pacific Road Arts Centre.
On assuming his post in 1999, commuter passenger figures on the Mersey Ferries subsidiary had rapidly declined from 33m in 1934 to 700,000.
“And they wouldn’t go back up, due to the rise of the car, the road tunnels and the fact we’d fixed the railway service,” said Mr Scales.
“So we either just ran the service until it died, or repositioned into the tourism economy.
“With commuter loadings down to 1.5 people boarding each ferry at Birkenhead Woodside, there was no doubt about the answer.
“To close the ferry service requires an Act of Parliament and would be unacceptable to the people of Merseyside.
“They tried to do close them in 1976, but I took the opposite view and decided to invest in the ferries as a tourism asset and contributor to the city region.
“We’ve completely refurbished the three ferry boats, including renaming them after their famous predecessors, Royal Iris, Royal Daffodil and Snowdrop.
“We chose Snowdrop, as that was the first ferry boat on the Manchester Ship Canal.
“The ferry now has big viewing panels and shows our commitment to building the ship canal summer cruises from six to 30 a year.
“The demographic is 50-year-olds plus, with children. The six-hour cruises to Salford are booked solidly ahead.”
Next he tackled the ferry terminals, with Seacombe getting a new pontoon and its listed buildings becoming home to Spaceport.
Mersey Ferries’ new Pier Head building not only contains a ticket office and cafe, but a satellite of Albert Dock’s Beatles Story.
But the “big one” came with the collapse of Birkenhead’s Historic Warships in 2006.
“We looked at helping and I came across U-534, which was preserved at Birkenhead after being raised from the Baltic following its sinking in May, 1945.
