A queue would start forming outside of the Forum Café in Earlestown from before 7am on market days.
The greasy-spoon has sat on the perimeter of the area’s central square for the last 37 years and for more than half of that time it looked out onto the vibrant corner of Merseyside. The market is not only a staple of St Helens’ history, but was one of the most colourful and storied in the north west.
Brenda Ellidge, 75, still owns and runs the café with her husband, Aidan. The doors still open at 7am, but these days there’s no queue forming at the door.
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“It was buzzing,” she says, thinking back to the market’s heyday, “the queue would run through the shop and outside of the cafe and it would be busy like that from 7am until 4pm.” Now the closed sign is put up as early as two o’clock in the afternoon, she says, speaking from the side of the counter.
On a week when Michael Gove journeyed north to talk about Levelling Up, few places capture this need for change as well as Earlestown. A former mining community that saw its manufacturing industry rust away towards the end of the 1980s, its town centre gives off shades of comforting nostalgia, but this is equally interrupted by bruising signs of austerity and the deprivation it has frozen into the landscape.
Banks have departed and shops have closed. The market remains but does not draw the numbers it once did.
Luck may not have been on Earlestown’s side in recent decades, but it is now being given a chance. A £20 million Levelling Up Fund bid has been approved by the Government - one of only two areas in Merseyside to receive funding.
The money will go towards reimagining the market square, changes to the high street and improvements to the town’s train station - one of the oldest in the country. Work is already underway to bring back the Town Hall into public use.
'Everything changes'
The money is certainly a boost for the town, but for an area with such a strong identity and history, change always comes with an element of compromise. As part of the plans, St Helens Borough Council is aiming to build an indoor element on the market square.
There is lukewarm support of these proposals inside the Forum Cafe, as Brenda admits the market remains “good on Friday, but it’s going downhill.” Sat at a table is her friend, Sharron Jaundrill, who has lived in the town all her life and is friends with a number of traders who operate on the square.
“It’s going to kill it,” she claims, speaking about the proposals, “it will put a lot of traders off.” She adds: “Beforehand people used to come down, queue up and take a place. The market was doing a lot better then. People in Warrington and Liverpool, they would all finish work and go down to Earlestown on a Friday.”
Speaking about the proposals and how they'll be brought into fruition, a St Helens council spokesperson said: “In drawing up the plans we have listened extensively to the views of businesses and residents that the redevelopment should celebrate and enhance this historic market town and this is reflected in our final Masterplan Development Framework. We will of course continue to engage with the whole community through this process and will be sharing emerging design details at the appropriate point in the process to get their feedback.”
Across the square is a business that is still in its infancy compared to the Forum Cafe. Ethan Lewis, 20, has recently opened his own barber shop, Utopia, after completing his apprenticeship in the town.
Michael Duxbury, 24, rents his own chair inside the shop. The pair are seemingly more open to change and take encouragement from the plans and money that will enable it to happen.
“Growing up, it was a thriving town, a working town,” says Michael when asked how the surrounding has changed in recent years, adding: “It’s not a ghost town now, but it has just sort of drifted.”
Ethan notes that a barbershop existed on the very site of their shop in the 40s and 50s, a legacy they pair are wanting to continue. But he admits the town can’t lean towards the future by entirely reflecting its past.
“The market hasn’t been that busy on the days that we’ve been here,” says Ethan, “out there, that’s not Earlestown market,” he adds, suggesting its current state is far cry from what many will remember of its heyday.
The young business owner points out that the town is well connected by its historic station, opened in the 1830. But he accepts it is also a conveyor belt that carries money away as well as has the potential to bring it in, with easy connections to Liverpool, Warrington and Manchester.
The openness to change is therefore mutual between the two, with calls for the town to offer more or risk falling further behind other areas - namely neighbouring Newton le Willows, the “spoilt brother” of the area, as Ethan says jokingly.
Newton now has a celebrated high street and is seen as a desirable area to live, and so there’s a clear feeling change can only be a positive for its neighbouring town that has struggled to move forward.
“Everything changes,” concludes Michael, “everything modernises.”
'If we didn’t do something we would lose it'
Straddling the edge of the market square and the town’s high street is The Newmarket pub. It’s of the last public houses still open in the centre of Earlestown with the remnants of The Ram’s Head still greeting passengers as they make their way up from the station.
For The Newmarket’s leaseholder, Jason Dennan, 52, the Levelling Up money brings with it a new wave of optimism - but it’s only when changes take place he’ll properly start to believe a new chapter is about to start.
“When I see the work, then I will believe it. There’s been a lot of promises down the years," he says, stepping away from behind the bar which he has run for the last eight years.
He added: “The area needs a serious, serious boost. The money will be a significant boost.
“It’s a good area full of good people, [but] the people in this area are down in a hole. At the moment they don’t know how to get out of the hole.
“But I think it will be a new start. I’m optimistic.”
It’s not only the market square that is set to benefit from the Levelling Up Money. The town’s historic train station - complete with five platforms going north, south, east and west - will be given a new lease of life.
For John Coleman, owner of John’s Barbers on the nearby Bridge Street, he never used to have to look at timetables to know if a train from Liverpool had just arrived. He would just watch the flurry of people rush by his shop window on the way toward the bustling market square. These days, it’s not so easy to tell when a train has pulled up into town.
“The station is of historical importance and it needs doing,” says John whose business has operated for over 52 years. Looking towards the market square up the road, he feels similar intervention is needed to put the breaks on its stagnation. “If we didn’t do something we would lose it”, he adds, noting the positives in the money being awarded to the town.
'Another slap in the face'
Across the region in Bootle, there’s similar optimism. But this isn’t the result of significant funding from the Government. It’s a feeling that’s hardwired into the area, a coping mechanism of sorts, according to Eddie Flynn.
Eddie runs the Bootle tool shed on the ground floor of The Strand, a charity craft workshop aimed at supporting mental health and tackling social isolation. The building it sits within was the subject of Bootle’s latest rejected bid - following on from disappointment in October 2021, as well as when bidding for the Town Deal Fund where Southport was successful.
“It’s not a surprise to me that we didn’t get the money,” says Eddie, lamenting the fact money found its way to the Prime Minister’s own constituency. Sefton is seen as a borough least in need of Levelling Up support, according to the Government’s index, but the reality on the ground says different.
Home to some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Merseyside, it too has seen its fortunes change - with the once futurist Strand shopping centre bearing much of this tiredness and dilapidation. A quick walk around the centre it seems bookmakers are one of the few businesses able to thrive.
Sefton Council is pushing ahead with an ambitious plan to create a new market and events space, ‘Salt and Tar’, on the banks of the canal, right in the shadow of the shopping centre - which it now owns. Plans have moved forward with the backing of Combined Authority money but won't be accelerated by Government support.
“There’s a lot of positivity a project like that would bring to an area like Bootle," says Eddie, looking out onto a quiet bottom floor in the shopping centre. But he points out that “it’s not just about money” when it comes to lifting Bootle out of its own economic slump. He believes there is a strength in the community that could also be tapped into.
The feeling is shared by small business owners a few units down, set up inside The Big Onion - a form of enterprise and incubation space. "You just accept it," says James Wainwright, 39, an artist and truck driver who sells artworks within The Strand.
“You can’t do anything about it,” he says in a reigned tone when asked about the Government snub, adding, "but Bootle has a strong community. That is what keeps us together - people are always willing to help one another out."
“But it should have to be like that," says Amy Mayes, a fellow artist selling works from the Strand. The funding snub therefore feels more painful knowing the town has been asked to lick its own wounds through a deindustrialisation of the ports, followed by challenging periods of austerity.
"There’s more buckets than people in [The Strand]," says Amy, referencing the rainfall that can occasionally seep through the building’s roof - a subtle marker of how Bootle has been left to slowly deteriorate, at the back of the queue for support.
“Sadly, this is yet another slap in the face for local people which represents neither a ‘stepping up’, ‘gauging up’ or ‘enhancing communities’ no matter what this Government wants its MPs to call it," commented leader of Sefton Cllr Ian Mahar, reacting to the news last week.
Furious with the outcome, he added: “It’s a setback to our ambitious plans, but we are determined to do what this Government refuses to, step up to deliver the boosts our local communities, economies and businesses deserve.
"However, if Sefton is to nonsensically remain in the lowest level of priority, we need to reflect on whether we should be continuing to invest our scarce resources in these incessant beauty contests, which this time has seen funding awarded for the Prime Minister’s own constituency and for Rutland, one of the least deprived constituencies in the country.”
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