Kirkby, the stadium and pipes of peace

THE prospect of Merseyside’s six big council chiefs sitting around for a pow-wow to talk about the state of the Liverpool City Nation fills me with fear.

They’ll need the cavalry to keep the warring factions in order, and I can hardly see a peace-pipe doing the rounds. Any smoke signals are likely to be generated by hot air and blown fuses.

Nobody will deny that Kirkby needs improving. If somebody told me the people who designed that town graduated from the Soviet Academy of Design I would not disagree.

Short of opting for a directly-elected city region mayor, Liverpool, Sefton, Wirral, Knowsley, St Helens and Halton are going for a city-region cabinet.

Big Chief Sitting Ron, aka Cllr Ron Rounds, of Knowsley, is likely to chair this collective for two years before handing the totem pole to somebody else.

Will it work? Of course not, don’t be stupid. This is the Wild West, not the North West and we like to settle things kinda our own way around these parts.

The problem for Liverpool City Nation is that each tribe is jealously possessive and protective of its own wigwam villages. The chiefs may get together and talk the same language, but when they mosey off to their own camps things will be different.

I remember going on a scouting mission to Birkenhead a few years ago when Chief Storey and his sidekick, the Cherokee Kid (David Henshaw), went to get their neighbours to sign a treaty that would see many pounds of European money channelled into Liverpool City Centre (precursor to the recently opened Liverpool One). There was virtually a declaration of war. The other chiefs argued that allowing a big slice of money to Liverpool would deny money to their own lands.

Yet something like 60 per cent of city centre jobs go to people in the neighbouring boroughs: hence more city centre jobs means work for nearby lands.

During my weekly political show on City Talk 105.9 I ask guest MPs the first thing they would do if they became Ruler of Merseyside. The most common answer is to make the districts work together rather than compete. Our inability to do what the Greater Manchester councils do – sing from the same sheet – is harmful. That’s the politician’s battle cry.

The purpose of a city region entity is to work together for the good of the whole, rather than compete.

Take for example the current wrangle over the Everton/Tesco/Knowsley Council plans for Kirkby. Nobody will deny that Kirkby needs improving. If somebody told me the people who designed that town graduated from the Soviet Academy of Design I would not disagree. Read the reports of consultants and the scale of the scheme does not make sense for a town of 40,000.

It can only be an economic success if it draws shoppers and visitors from Liverpool, Bootle, Huyton, Prescot, St Helens and Widnes.

One report, commissioned by Liverpool City Council, estimates that the turnover of the bigger Kirkby will not be far behind the money going through the tills of Liverpool One. No wonder Grosvenor is also objecting.

So the new Super Cabinet, if it is doing its job properly, would tell Big Chief Sitting Ron where to stick his big plan for Kirkby. The reality is it won’t happen, because this is the frontier lands of the North West’s Wild West where (thanks to Liverpool) the smoking of peace pipes is now illegal.

As mentioned earlier, Larry Neild presents The Politics Show every Sunday on City Talk 105.9FM. 12 noon.