Minutes from residents meeting 9th May 2005

Seymour Street Area Residents Association Meeting
Monday 23rd 7.30 Tranmere Community Project - all welcome
Please come along and make your voice heard. The notes of the last meeting on the 9th of May are below. There is also information about the issues to be talked about at the next meeting.

Notes of the meeting on the 9th of May at the Community Project
27 people attended from Seymour Street, Thompson Street, Frodsham Street and Warrington Street. Councillor George Davies, the Cabinet Member for Housing and Crime Reduction for Wirral Borough Council also came and spoke at the meeting.

Residents spoke one after the other to Councillor Davies about their experiences living in the area. Most had lived in the area for 10 years or more and some for more than 30 years. Everyone said that they wanted to stay in the area and did not want their homes to be knocked down. Many people said that some homes might need money spent to bring them up to a good standard but many owners had already improved their homes and no further work was needed.

All agreed that the biggest problems in the area were social problems and not housing.
Councillor Davies said that what he was hearing was news to him. He had been led to believe that people in the area were behind the scheme. He did not realise that so many people were opposed to the clearances. He promised to take what he had heard back and discuss it with the Director of Housing “straight away”. He also said that the decision by the Wirral Cabinet on what to do about the proposals for Higher Tranmere had not yet been made. He said that the Cabinet would be discussing proposals from its advisors at a meeting in June after which he expected a decision would be made. Many people in the meeting told him that there had been delay after delay in getting information back to them about the scheme. They kept getting letters saying that the decision would be made ‘next month’ and this had gone on for over a year now. Councillor Davies made a pledge that one way or another he would make sure the decision was given to the residents in the area by November at the latest. Many residents were not happy with this late date for information.

The Chairman then summarised the views of the meeting by telling Councillor Davies that residents in the area supported the idea of spending new money on improvements where they were needed but that the proposals for demolition in Seymour Street, Frodsham Street, Warrington Street and Thompson Street were rejected. Many residents had said that they would fight the proposals all the way if they had to. The meeting then thanked the Councillor for coming down to listen to them and said they would look forward to hearing what was to happen next.

[further note] one week after the meeting a programme on Granada television “Tonight” described a very similar clearance scheme in Liverpool which was opposed by local residents – even though the houses affected were in much worse repair than those in Higher Tranmere. A copy of this programme has been taken and is available to borrow for those who want to see it. A second part of this “Tonight” programme called “New Homes for Old?” is to be broadcast on Friday evening at 8pm

Policing in the Area
The meeting then went on to talk about crime, vandalism and policing in the area. Inspector Martin Andrews who heads up the local community policing team had sent his apologies being double booked but he did promise to make it along to the next meeting (on the 23rd of May). Carole and Liz our two police Community Support Officers were at the meeting and took questions and points for discussion from the meeting. Many residents talked about problems with large groups of young people on the street last summer. Some people talked about drugs being openly used behind the houses in Seymour Street and others talked about a drug dealing operation on Church Street, which had been closed by a police raid and then opened up again within a few days. Others talked about problems with young people playing football on the street, others about cars and vans parking on pavements making it difficult for mothers with wheelchairs to get past.

Carol and Liz said they had heard many people saying that there had been problems in the past getting a satisfactory response from the police to deal with problems such as these. They said that more resources were now being devoted to this area and that they believed that things would improve. They gave the Merseyside police incident control room number out which was 0151 777 2080. This service was staffed 24 hours a day and was the number to use for all except police emergencies when 999 should be used. They explained that the response would vary depending on the incident reported and the time and workload – late Friday and Saturday night were always difficult times for them as they were always overstretched. They also said that local residents could also call the Well Lane Police Station to ask for Liz and Carol to call round when they were next on duty. Phone 0151 709 6010 and ask for Well Lane Police Station.

The Agenda for the next meeting
The meeting on the 23rd of May at 7.30pm will deal with any issues raised by residents and also the following:

§ Inspector Martin Andrews will talk about his new neighbourhood team – how it will work and how it can help the local community to deal with local crime and vandalism.
§ James Kay will report back on discussions with Tranmere Alliance about football and other facilities for young people in the area.
§ There will be a discussion about a constitution for the group including agreement about its name and aims. A draft constitution will be available for discussion and a new committee will be formed. The constitution is necessary if we are to get funds to print leaflets, book halls for meetings etc and to help us with our work.
§ Hopefully a committee will be formed to represent the group in between meetings of all the residents in the area.


For more information contact James Kay on
0151 647 1903 or 07976 839 054 or
email Seymour.residents@ntlworld.com