Letters to the Editor - 07th February 2008

Feb 7 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

It’s your turn to take a swing

LIFE-LONG West Kirby residents, like this local councillor, will not be surprised by the overwhelmingly negative response so far to your front-page ”Exclusive”, with its potentially misleading illustrations and over-enthusiastic Comment, of January 15.

No doubt you were working from a press release giving only one side of a story that has been smouldering since the Open Golf announcements in 2001 and 2002 led to the Masterplan for Hoylake & West Kirby, produced following extensive public consultation in 2004.

Give the would-be developers some credit. Their scheme is imaginative and the box-like structures illustrated are probably far from the final appearance that will now undergo detailed design. Their hotel would be far superior to the budget establishment once suggested for this site but, I am told, it will have to be entirely four-storey and set on a base one metre above the promenade to avoid tidal flooding.

This must all go before a series of public consultation meetings. When these are announced, I would urge all residents to attend, make up their own minds and make their feelings known. Ultimately, the decision lies between getting a new sailing school complex at no cost to the council with a four-storey quality hotel, shops and restaurant for the developer or, retaining the open seafront views and a ground-level car park which is already fully utilised at busy times.

I have warned from the outset that I do not believe the people of West Kirby will accept this deal and I have told the developers that they have a mountain to climb. Wirral’s cabinet should take note.

Geoffrey Watt, Conservative councillor for West Kirby & Thurstaston Ward

Don’t be negative

IT’S depressing to read the knee-jerk hostility of some Wirral residents to the proposal for a hotel on the West Kirby seafront. An investment of that magnitude, driven by young people who are the future of the place, deserves more thought.

The detractors seem to want to sacrifice economic prosperity and social regeneration for a car park and a few recycling bins. They claim to speak for “the residents”, yet the ones I’ve spoken to are relieved that some life may be breathed back into the place.

Like another correspondent, I also left Wirral – but because I felt stifled by its unmet potential. I’m not alone. Working people who have travelled extensively demand more from their home towns than West Kirby currently offers. Professional adults want civilised, elegant life after 6.30pm. They don’t want to take the a John Lennon flight to Barcelona every time they want a drink with a view; they want to walk out of their door and find it.

In West Kirby, the opportunity to do just that is sitting under their noses, but some of them would seemingly rather sit in the Morrison’s cafe than choose to take it.

If these reluctant residents persist so petulantly to ignore the diversity of their community, and the longing some people feel to detect a pulse of modern life, they will surely find that their investors, and their future, flee. As a woman with her own business, and jobs to offer, these unthinking, insular objectors should remember that West Kirby was the town I chose to leave. I will not be the only one.

They should welcome the investment and work with it, not against it, because it’s unlikely to be made twice.

Name and address supplied

Let’s compare notes

I READ T Sutton’s letter in Tuesday’s Daily Post on Merseyrail’s statistics with interest. Punctuality is measured through a standard measure across the country, and on that basis we are indeed the best operator in the country with 94.3% of Merseyrail trains running on time.

We do not compile these figures ourselves; they are independently collected so that comparisons to be made between different train operators nationally on a like-for-like basis. We do, indeed, collect statistics for “customer rating”; in fact, what customers think is vital information for us. Passenger Focus, the independent organisation which represents the interests of passengers, runs the National PassengerSurvey twice a year. The most recent findings were published last week and 87% of Merseyrail’s passengers currently rate our services as “satisfied or good”. Again, Merseyrail is well above the national average of 81%.

All this good news doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for improvement. The Chester-Liverpool-Chester service is a route where we know we should do better and we are actively seeking ways of doing that. As it is the longest route on the network, there is currently little time for recovery if any delays occur. If we need to cancel a train or turn a train short of its destination, we do not do this to avoid paying fines but on the basis of causing inconvenience to as few people as possible. In the morning, by far the largest number of people travel into Liverpool from Chester and in the afternoon the reverse applies. So we base any operational decisions on that.

And as it happens, I should know as I travel by train (peak time) every day from Bache to Liverpool and back and am rarely delayed. I realise Mr Sutton travels in the opposite direction, but I would be happy to meet up with him to compare notes.

Bart Schmeink, Managing Director, Merseyrail

Get your tickets

I WOULD like to update your readers about the Liverpool Carters Working Horse Monument Fund Project that so many have supported in the past.

The Project needed £120,000 to erect a full-size bronze statue of a Liverpool Working Horse to commemorate the amazing work done by horses and Carters for over 250 years in Liverpool.

The Carters, who run the Project have so far raised £77,000, which has allowed the full-size clay model to be finished by equine sculptor Judy Boyt.

We now need to raise the remaining £43,000 to get the statue cast in bronze and installed in the city.

To this end, there is a fundraising Luncheon being held on our behalf at The Athenaeum, in Church Alley. The Luncheon is on Monday, March 3, 12 for 12.30 and will consist of a drinks reception, a two-course meal, guest speaker and raffle and auction.

All proceeds will go to The Working Horse Monument Fund. We have in the past had significant donations from The Westminster Foundation (£10,000) and Liverpool City Council (£35,000) and hope finally to see the statue cast and installed during 2008 and our reign as Capital of Culture.

Donations and requests for tickets (which are limited) to: Liverpool Carters Working Horse Monument Fund, P O Box 136, Liverpool L14 5WZ

Sharon Brown, Secretary, Liverpool Carters Working Horse Monument Fund

Token gesture

I DISAGREE with Joe Moran, of the UK Independence Party (Letters, Daily Post, February 6) that the Government’s proposed scheme to send two pupils from every sixth form in the country to visit Auschwitz is a good idea.

As usual, this is a case of tokenism. How will sending just two teenagers to visit the concentration camp teach our young people the importance of tolerance?

No doubt they will send the best behaved two, prefects even, rather than open the opportunity to everyone.

Instead, they should show all sixth-formers the films that were taken as the soldiers liberated the camps – such disturbing images that they would never forget.

S Hardy, via email

Courageous man

I AM very impressed by the Bishop of Liverpool James Jones’s courage in calling for more tolerance and openness within the church. For too long, too many people have felt excluded from the Church of England despite their desire to praise their God.

We live in very troubled times and there is enough intolerance and aggression in the world without the Church abandoning those who may need the support of a loving all-embracing God the most.

I only hope that people listen to the Bishop’s plea.

K Williams, Warrington

Legendary night

I AM writing to tell you what a wonderful time I had at the Carling Academy on Saturday night when I travelled down from Wales to watch the first concert in 20 years by legendary Liverpool band The Pale Fountains. It was worth the journey alone to see the smiling faces of the fans after they finished their set.

Well done, Mick and John, and the rest of the group, it was a night I will never forget.

B Jones, Bethesda

Short-changed

THE Minister for Transport, Mr Tom Harris, has decided to give Manchester Metrolink £102m towards the purchase of new trams and general “tidying up” of the system.

In the same breath, he announced he is to make a grant of £1.8m to Merseyrail, for refurbishment of a couple of stations.

I think we all guessed from the beginning where the funding for the tragic Merseytram was heading.

EH, Aintree

Mercury rising

READING your front-page article about the “toxic spill” in the Williamson Gallery, brought to mind my Dad’s garden shed in 1941, which had a bottle of mercury on the shelf, that I loved playing with, spilling gobs onto the floor and chasing them around.

I now see that I should have been wearing a specialist chemical suit. However did I survive?

Reg Cox, Aigburth

Talk up – not down

MIKE CULLEN (Letters, February 5) makes a good point. I have not heard Margi Clarke or indeed any of the presenters on this new radio station, but I am fed up of forever hearing people playing up the old Scouse stereotypes in the media. It is time we started talking ourselves up, not down.

J Moore, West Derby