IT TOOK a long time to get there, but, after years of construction and haggling over rights of access, Liverpool has a magnificent coastal walkway stretching all the way from the Pier Head to Garston.

Now it’s Wirral’s turn. Some pieces of the jigsaw are already in place, like Eastham Country Park and the under-appreciated but superb esplanade at Rock Ferry.

Others are almost there, with the landfill site at the former Bromborough Dock now being landscaped after years in the making.

When finished, the left bank of the Mersey should have a public walkway stretching all the way from the Ship Canal locks at Eastham up to the Tranmere Oil Jetty.

It will, without a shadow of doubt, be an asset both for the people of Wirral and those coming in from farther afield.

The joint project between the local authority and the Royal Mersey Yacht Club is just the kind of final push the project needs to bring it to a conclusion.

It might be a bit over-ambitious to start thinking of restoring a ferry boat terminal after 70-odd years, but there is no point in not being adventurous.

Indeed, those responsible for planning the link from Eastham to Rock Ferry should even now be setting their sights even higher.

There would be a great many practical and legal obstacles to extending public access both to the north and south, given the seemingly immovable presences of industrial and commercial sites like the Ship Canal, the Oil Jetty and Cammell Laird’s shipyard.

But they are surely not completely insurmountable. Is it not too much to dream that one day we might be able to walk the whole length of the Wirral bank of the Mersey from New Brighton all the way to Runcorn?