Only the sound of occasional hammering within the Cammell Laird shipyard interrupts a bright and peaceful afternoon on Birkenhead’s waterfront.
But a few hundred metres away, inside Start Yard, the whirring coffee machine is hard at work fuelling a cluster of creative and tech start ups. Workers are strewn across the cafe, laptops in hand, while the talk from an open-sided conference room is drowned out by music coming from communal speakers.
The business accelerator’s founder, Chris Lee, tells us there’s a waiting list to rent office space within the converted warehouse. It’s a similar story for when the venture expands in the coming months, with plans to incorporate a bar and food market
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Three years ago, Cammell Laird’s iconic yellow cranes would have been the dominant symbols of Birkenhead, before they were decommissioned and torn down. Now the warehouses near the shipyard are symbolic of a new Birkenhead, one shaking off the rust of its industrial past.
On Thursday, May 5, Wirral goes to the polls in local elections that could see the overall control of the council change hands. But before the result in Birkenhead and Tranmere is announced, where the Greens are hoping for a clean sweep, significant change is already in motion.
In many ways the area is reflective of Wirral’s diverse political makeup. The borough is currently not in any majority control and Labour and the Conservatives are separated only by 4 seats, (Labour the largest group with 27).
It is an anomaly compared to the wider region’s deeply red council chambers. Birkenhead in some ways has a similar makeup; it is represented by the Greens, shaped by a minority Labour leadership and funded, recently at least, by Conservative Government money - with £144m in capital grants secured in recent years.
The money has helped guide the vision for this new Birkenhead that attracts the type of businesses Start Yard houses. Although its implementation is still in its infancy. The town still faces high levels of deprivation and next week’s elections will be fought against a backdrop of £20m of council cuts - hitting a range of public services from leisure centres to libraries.
“Many people are still pioneering,” Chris Lee tells the ECHO when asked to describe the town’s landscape ahead of Thursday’s crunch vote. “Birkenhead is in a totally different league to other towns. It's been totally bereft of development for decades.
“But there are opportunities and change does need to happen. It just takes brave people to come along and start something.
“It’s my hope that in 10 years, one or two of the businesses in Start Yard right now can be in the Grade A office space that is being built in the town centre.”
'Something has got to change'
The office space Mr Lee references is no more than a skeletal structure at the moment. Piercing drills ring out around the neighbouring Birkenhead Market as its steel framework is gradually put into place.
If the waterfront is symbolic of a new Birkenhead, then the market is the epitome of its past. But both aspects of the town are just as eager to see Birkenhead move in a new direction, as Joe Orr, tells the ECHO, standing beside his rug stall.
He said: “Something has got to change. It can't get any worse here in the market - or even around the rest of the town centre.”
Joe points out that many of the traders within the quiet and famished market are struggling to make ends meet with footfall at an all time low. On the nearby high street, he says rumours of the big brands leaving the town grow by the day.
Pointing to the new office block that is being partly developed by the council and built next door to the old market, he explains how it “misses the point” of the core issues the town is facing. He would like to see more affordable housing built in the area and better job opportunities for younger people instead.
Working alongside on the stall, David Orr chips in: “Seven traders are left outside in the market out of 70. That says it all about where this is heading.”
David Orr notes how he “doesn’t stand in the way of regeneration and moving forward” but he questions the decision to build offices in the middle of the town centre “on a prime retail site when they could have built it anywhere”
He added: “It's Birkenhead. Let's get it right. This isn't Liverpool. The regeneration plans are not too much too soon. It's all too late.”
The market has been the centre of protracted debate about a new location. After years of discussions, in 2024 the market will move across town to the redeveloped House of Fraser building. This will be part of sweeping changes that will see the £144m kitty of grants also spent building the subterranean Dock Branch Park which will link the waterfront of Birkenhead to Wirral Waters.
Both David and Joe Orr are optimistic about the new market and overall future of the town and appreciate the difficult position councillors are put in when dealing with successive cuts, but they feel Birkenhead has had to wear more bruises than necessary as it languished in wait of a new direction.
A nearby stall holder, Lisa Bowker, suggests that Birkenhead is still treading water and that visualisations don’t fix the problems at hand - both those in the ailing market and wider Birkenhead. “It needs a lot of work,” she tells the ECHO, but the looming elections don’t fill her with confidence that now is when the necessary work will be delivered.
She added: “They say we're going to see change but nothing changes here. It’s all just plans and design.”
This feeling is shared by Kevin Goodman, 62. He believes it will be tough for his business to make it through the next two years before the market is built. He notes the growing cost of living crisis and declining footfall within the town centre as two worrying indicators for challenging times ahead.
He said: “Lots of plans are always thinking ahead to the future but we're thinking about living now, which isn’t getting any easier. The plans are all so long term.
“I'd be optimistic about Birkenhead, but for someone my age I think the plans are too far off. It's going to take a lot of time to see real change.”
Resilient
On the far side of the Birkenhead and Tranmere ward is Wirral Deen centre. Inside, Mohammed Tahir, 25, is reading in the communal cafe space.
Mr Tahir is the Community Engagement Officer for the centre’s new education programme, which will cover everything from philosophy to environmental awareness. The Islamic Organisation has been serving the local community since 2016, but Mohammed says this grew in importance over the course of the pandemic.
"The community bond has become stronger," he tells the ECHO, placing his reading to one side. Within the centre, Mohammed is aware of the benefits of having somewhere to come and connect with others, but he worries about how the wider area will be impacted by the latest cuts to public provisions like leisure centres and libraries.
He said: “We need more places for children to go. More community facilities. We need to give them something positive. When funding is low and cuts are happening it's worrying. We shouldn't be taking away these things people need.
“There is a poverty problem in Birkenhead. If poor people have nowhere to go they're more likely to turn towards the wrong things.”
But Mr Tahir’s overall view of the area remains positive, irrespective of the underlying social and financial challenges.
He added: “Birkenhead is a resilient area. Even if we have bad things happen to us, we're resilient. We all have our problems and we all have our ups and downs, but the important thing is having a place you can go that can uplift you.”
'This is a sausage roll town'
Back inside the market, on its far side, Wards Fish has been a mainstay for 94 years. However It will soon move out and take up a new unit on Birkenhead’s high street. Other traders see this as a success story, but its owner, Nigel Buckmaster, 46, feels the move has been forced on him and he can no longer see a future within this ageing part of Birkenhead.
“Birkenhead is the only town in the country that seems to be levelling down,” he claims, speaking to the ECHO from behind his vibrant fish counter. Mr Buckmaster doesn’t hide his frustration with the council when it comes to how planning for a new market has been handled, with multiple false dawns that have seen the number of traders in the area gradually thin out.
But beyond the market, he thinks the town “missed the boat” to tie together its heritage and future when it came to implementing change - which he says is now coming at the cost of its established identity and economy.
He told the ECHO: "[Traders like us], we've been abandoned. We employ nine people here. Why focus on a start up when you have businesses here that are doing well already?”
Mr Buckmaster believes Birkenhead should be anchored to strong market and independent shops, but believes the council’s “idea is to gentrify Birkenhead” - a reality he feels is increasingly inevitable, regardless of any political upsets later on this week. He added: “They tried gentrification in Hamilton Square years ago. It doesn't work.
“People in Birkenhead don't want paninis. They want sausage rolls. This is a sausage roll town. We should know - we live here and we work here.
“We sell caviar, and we sell kippers. Gentrification doesn't work”.
When asked about what gives him hope about Birkenhead, he says “the people” but fears the surrounding landscape is working against their wants and needs. He lacks confidence that the looming elections will bring a new approach or vision to the area. “Just look over the river Liverpool,” he added, “that's where it is happening - here is where it is not.”
'It's not just infrastructure'
Christopher Torpey would likely disagree with Mr Buckmaster’s final statement. As the co-founder of Future Yard, a live music venue, cafe, bar and arts space, he believes the cultural organisations gaining a foothold in Birkenhead show where it is starting to ‘happen’ for the town.
He suggests there is a constellation of local, but new businesses that are starting to capture a growing sense of pride and optimism - one that wants to celebrate Birkenhead's individual identity while opening up to its emerging potential. Mr Torpey told the ECHO: “Future Yard, Start Yard, Bloom, Make CIC, they're the things that reach out beyond political and infrastructural change and give a different impression of what's going on.
“Attitudes are starting to change. People are starting to talk more positively. People from the outside are seeing that more is a lot more going on.”
Mr Torpey says that Birkenhead has declined in his lifetime and has been “long overdue an overhaul, but this, he believes, is not set to sweep through the town like a fine regenerative tooth comb - cutting out large pockets.
He added: “Any change that we're going to see in Birkenhead that we feel is needed is going to be slow. That’s because a large part of the change is how people view where they live in an emotional and mental way.
“It's not just infrastructure. The main overhaul is in people's heads. It's about people being positive about Birkenhead again and it not being a byword for neglect, misery or the butt of a joke.”
Wirral's elections are on a knife edge and Birkenhead's residents could play a crucial role in the future political direction of the council. For many in the town, it's not necessarily about who is in charge, or who represents them, it is about delivering the change that will see this proud post-industrial town rise again.
