In years gone by, playing in the Scotland Road and Westminster darts league was one way of frequenting a range of famous pubs in the heart of north Liverpool.
Kevin Robinson-Hale, 37, spent his younger years playing for the Eagle Vaults. By the time he stepped up the oche, the Scotland Road area no longer boasted its once hundreds of watering holes, but enough remained to provide good competition.
“There were at least three or four pubs along the stretch” remembers Kevin, “and it was always bustling in the years before that.” Today, the Eagle Vaults pub has been converted into flats.
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The Throstles Nest, the final establishment still serving along the road, called last orders on its operation in September 2022 and was placed on the market. Its long term owner, Kevin McMullen, 78, confirmed to the ECHO that its sale is still ongoing.
There is an end of an era feel to this part of Liverpool. The walls of the former Parrot Pub crumbling into the road a few weeks ago appeared to suggest the area quite literally cannot support its once most famous trade.
With derelict shops being demolished and more apartment conversions under way, it’s a place that is clearly in transition. But the same probably wouldn’t be said about its politics . The area is currently the definition of a Liverpool Labour heartland.
However Kevin is one of those who will hope that sweeping change comes to influence the ballot box on May 4, when the new, condensed ward of Everton West is on the line. Formerly the election agent of sitting councillor, cabinet member and favourite to win the seat, Jane Corbett, he is hoping his own work within the tight knit community can shift people towards an alternative in the Green Party, for which he is the standing candidate.
While the lifelong Everton local, former chair of Everton Labour and vice chair of Walton CLP did his part to get Jane Corbett elected four years ago, he now faces the daunting task of trying to undo that work. To come out on top he needs to win over one of the strongest Labour voting blocks in the city.
It will be an uphill task, similar to a climb up the famous browside Everton West is built on. But with fewer people to vote within more concentrated boundaries, a raft of changes taking place in the area, competitors to the city's dominant group are banking on a swing that may previously have been out of reach.
'It has been a tough time'
The view from Everton Park, the centre of the ward shows an even starker picture of change. Once home to the ‘streets in the sky’ tower blocks and surrounded by tenements, only a handful remain.
One of those still standing is where Jane Corbett moved to at the age of 17. She describes witnessing 'three fires in a fortnight' and how the fear of this and the worry that residents couldn't escape led her into a life of campaigning and eventually politics - representing Everton for the last 20 years.
“We have a good track record, rebuilding the infrastructure of the area under massive pressure,” says Jane of her time as a councillor, adding: “There is a long way to go, but we have come miles from what it used to be like.”
In decades prior, the conditions in some tenements in the Everton area saw a collection of flats become known as the ‘Piggeries’, such was the levels of deprivation. Homes went on to be demolished around the area but were not replaced at the same rate.
Between the years 1971 and 1991, the area saw a 60% drop in its population, according to Ms Corbett. “This is going to devastate a community in terms of infrastructure,” she adds, “that is why it has been so important to fight to keep that infrastructure there.”
The infrastructure she mentions is now largely around Great Homer Street where the enormous £150m Project Jennifer development brought about a supermarket, retail park, some new housing and a refurbished tower block, though there are critics of how comprehensive this regeneration was.
Housing conditions were “desperate” but have been “transformed” according to Ms Corbett, but there remains a significant lack of available stock compared to demand.
If income is low then people really depend on their family networks to keep them going, says the incumbent councillor, adding: “If you can't stay local due to housing, that whole network is broken.”
Vauxhall Law centre, based on the other side of Scotland Road, launched 50 years ago and developed through the housing support it offered residents in the area. It now helps people with a range of other debt and benefits advice.
“Looking back over the last 50 years as a whole, housing has gotten a lot better,” says Alan Kelly, the centre’s development officer, “but in the last five to 10 years, it has gotten a lot worse.”
Rather than conditions, he says this is due to people being evicted by private landlords and the general shortage of stock within the area. This has been significantly compounded by the cost of living crisis hitting what remains one of the most deprived parts of the city.
“It has been a tough time, even though there has been some regeneration in the area,” says Mr Kelly, “you can’t cut resources year on year and expect things to get better.” On this Ms Corbett agrees.
“It is still the most disadvantaged ward in the city,” she says. “It is a very strong community that is under massive pressure because of low income and the levels of poverty in the community.”
The lack of new, available housing hasn’t been helped by the number of stalled development sites - projects that haven’t always been targeted towards the local population, in the view of Kevin Robinson-Hale. At one point a small stretch of road on the corner of Fox Street was in the vicinity of at least three stalled developments.
Developments on Everton brow side, St Anne’s Gardens and Fox Street have therefore been a core part of the Green campaigner's work over the last 18 months. It is something he feels shows how he is “fighting for the community” and “someone who is active” within the ward, even when elections aren't coming up.
'There is a great will to survive'
Hardship and false promises on development may have led to cracks running deeper in the area, but it still retains its heartbeat - Greatie Market. But even the famous centre of trade has had to take its fair share of bruises over the years when moved from its original location to a new site further along Great Homer Street.
While still one of the most vibrant markets in the region, it took a knock earlier this year when a £20m Levelling Up Fund bid by Liverpool City Council was rejected. It proposed expanding the market by taking over vacant buildings and expanding its offer.
“It is a shame,” says Dave Simpson, a trader at the market for the last 44 years, noting how the north end was overlooked when it came to potential investment. He says the proposed crossing leading into Vauxhall would have also been a plus point, connecting parts of Kirkdale and Everton that are separated by busy stretches of road.
But he isn’t downbeat about the future, knowing the market and its traders have a communal strength - even if a lack of car parking space still needs addressing. “There is a great will to survive. I went most of a year without trading there and thought that I had lost all of my customers, but people still came back,” he says, adding: “It is still a strong market and runs well. We are the heart of the area.”
It is this notion of ‘heart’ where frustration arises from the £150m Project Jennifer development, the permanent retail offer in the area in contrast to the market’s one day a week. Plans for the project emerged in 2003 and were led by Liverpool City Council and developers St Modwen.
A large Sainsbury’s and array of retail units are its prominent markers along Great Homer Street, with its new homes and renovated tower block testament to its relative success. But the project was nearly two decades in the making before the largest supermarket retail unit was built by 2017.
In the years prior, the area’s smaller supermarkets, butchers and hardware stores had to make way. So did a medical centre and a dentist.
Kevin Robinson-Hale said he has been pushing for answers as to why the community facilities weren’t returned as part of the project. Equally why parts of Everton park remain undeveloped and covered by hoardings.
“When the dentist, doctors and library went and it was said they would be returned - and we never got them, something is fundamentally wrong,” he say, adding: “It’s great that [the development] happened, but some pieces have not been put back.”
This, in Mr Robinson-Hale's view, adds to the feeling that Everton West has been “taken for granted”, with his campaign set on providing answers on the claims the area was stripped of some of its assets.
He adds: “We need answers, then we can move on. We need good investment. People are used to being promised one thing and not getting it. That's what needs to change.”
A spokesperson for Liverpool City Council previously told the ECHO that Project Jennifer provided huge benefits to the north Liverpool community including improved housing and transport infrastructure. Developers St Modwen were approached for comment.
Jane Corbett points to the success of the project in creating new jobs locally and involving local firms and providing apprenticeships. While the health centre on Great Homer Street was relocated, Jane says she was central to the fight to save another facility on Everton Road.
While seen as the favourite to hold on to the seat in the gradually changing ward, she says isn’t taking things for granted as we move closer to May. “I have got the energy for this,” she adds, “and I’ll never take the position for granted.”
The former deputy mayor added: “One of the things we need desperately and it would make a big difference to Everton West and the city would be having a Labour government, Labour council, working together with the Labour led city region.
“For the long term positive change, we need the Labour realignment nationally, locally and in the city region. Positive change can then happen rapidly and is more long lasting.
“We’ve had a battering off this Tory Government. You can see how that has played out here”
The Conservative candidate for the ward is Anthony Waters and a spokesperson for the local group told the ECHO how “there is no real love for Liverpool Labour at the moment.” The spokesperson accepted austerity had impacted the area but pointed towards Labour’s mismanagement of the funds it had, noting land sales for £1 and the electricity contract blunder last summer - an oversight that led to Jane losing her finance portfolio within the cabinet.
As for Kevin Robinson-Hale’s ambitions to get elected, he feels as though he is in with more than a fighting chance in one of the toughest wards to crack in the city. “I'm not just saying vote green,” he says, “I'm saying vote better.”
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