HMR update

Just (1.00 pm on Thursday 8th April 2010) been to a meeting of the group that brings together resident's representatives and Wirral Council employees around the Housing Market Renewal (HMR) programme in Tranmere. Minutes will follow - here are some of the key points raised.

Shops
The commercial development on the former Abakan site is now underway. All the legal agreements have been signed and the developer (Lovell) are now clearing the Japanese Knotweed infestation on the site before laying power cables to and from the substation they will arrange to be built on the site.

They will then need the next nine months to complete this site. At the end of this process there will be one biggish local supermarket - about the size of the Co-op now on Church Road - probably it wuill be the Co-op -and another six or seven smaller shop units. There are detailed plans for this on view at the Tranmere Neighbourhood Resource Centre.

St Cath's Car Park Extension
Titan's Gym - former site - will now be used as part of the development of the St Cath's site by their site developers. The site will be handed over by the Council for the works to get the car park established on the 19th of April 2010. The wall between the existing St Cath's car park and the former Gym site will be opened up so that there should be no new traffic on Church Road because of this use.

Local jobs for local workers
After interventions by local residents there is to be a meeting on the 20th of April at Royal Standard House for over 100 local builders to explore opportunities for local workers to be involved in the HMR and St Cath's site developments.

Whitford Road
56 two or three bedroomed houses to be built by Lovell for private owners - 32 are direct sale in the open market and the other 24 will have a 30% investment using Government Homebuy Direct funds meaning owners only need to find the other 70%. These houses should be completed by December 2010.

It is likely that Lovell will monitor sales of these and if they go well - use this as evidence to justify building the later phases of the Church Road developments.

Demolitions
The block of 21, 23, 28, 36 Church Road (with "Yvonnes" - the former pound shop) is to come down next as will Merrimans at the back of Seymour Street. The disconnection of power and water services will come first then demolition - probably over the next three months.

More minutes to follow later.

Timetables in bus stop - Church Road

I spoke some time ago to Phil Davies - our local councillor - about missing bus timetables in the bus shelter opposite the Co-op on Church Road. I had previously raised this at a Tranmere Together meeting. For a couple of months there had been no current timetable in the shelter and for quite a long time there was just a notice saying that there couldn't be an updated timetable because the bus times were changing so often. I took the veiw that this just wasn't good enough after talking to local residents who told me that they were all at sixes and sevens about when the buses were due.

To cut a long story short Phil chased up Merseytravel by writing to their Chief Executive -Neil Scales. The end result is that we now have an updated timetable in the shelter - so thanks to Phil for that.

Phil sent me a copy of the letter that he had received from Neil Scales which is a classic peice of civil service fudge which manages to face two ways at once - obviously a well-trained civil servant. Mr Scales also fails to apologise for the failure of his organisation to maintain current information at our bus stops - which I think is the least that he could have done.

He says in his letter to Phil that they have 'a commitment to maintaining current information' on bus service timetables at bus stops but that they 'don't have the resources' to keep the updated information "from the date of the change". This seems to mean that they have the commitment only for public relations purposes - they won't actually be delivering on that commitment. This is pretty poor stuff from a Chief Exec whose job it is to allocate resources to achieve their commitments.

Have a look for yourself - it is attached below.

Church Road HMRI Dec 07 meeting

Notes from Church Road feedback meeting 12th December 2007

These notes were taken by me (James Kay) and have been written up in note format. They will be replaced on this blog in due course by formal minutes from the meeting. There are some key points that you might want to note.

Progress report
As at 12th December the developers were still waiting for outline planning permission on the whole development. This hasd been submitted back in April 2007. They could not go ahead with a detailed application until this was given. The obstacle seems to be the legal team at the council who are holding this up. The end result of our discussions was that Phil Davies – our ward Councillor and a Wirral MBC Cabinet member, promised to chase this up and try to get all the key players in one room to resolve it quickly. Phil is clearly committed to resolving this as soon as possible but he is up against a local council bureaucracy whose track record on doing anything on time is abysmal. Don’t hold your breath.

IF Phil is successful in his attempts to speed up the bureaucrats (by no means a certainty) the best timetable from now on looks like this:

* Outline planning permission in place by mid January
* Detailed planning permission to be submitted – end February 08
* Detailed planning permission granted – June 08 (at the best – the outline permission has taken them 9 months already instead of the promised 3 months)
* Earliest start date therefore on Abakan site for commercial development is about 12 weeks later – that is Sep 08
* To finish Phase 1 (mainly the shops on the Abakan site) will take about 9 months from start of work to doors opening for business – May/June 09.

This is (in my opinion JK) the earliest likely completion date for phase 1. It is quite possible that we might not see this first phase completed until the end of 2009.

The next meeting will be February 13th at Royal Standard House at 2.00pm

HMRI Fun Day

Date: Saturday 29th September 2007
Event times: 11 – 4pm
Venue: Former Hillside Court site on Hillside Road, (off Church Road) Tranmere.

Main Stage Area
12noon John Harding – Magic Show
12.30pm Talent Show entries invited by John Harding
12.30-1.00pm Live Entertainment – Marc Kenny
1.00-4.00pm Talent Show – MC – John Harding

Information Marquee
Organisations will be allocated a table and chair within the marquee.
1. Live Wirral
2. Tranmere Alliance
3. Tranmere Together
4. Lovell
5. Energy Efficiency
6. Wardens
7. Tranmere Community Project
8. Landlord Accreditation Team
9. Handyperson
10. DK Architects
11. Home Improvement
12. Venture Housing
13. Living Through Change

Activities include:

Bouncy Castle
Beat the Goalie
Face Painting
Children’s Artist
Jacket Potatoes
Tuck Shop

Please can all exhibitors ensure that their stand/table is set up by 10.45am at the latest.

Young males attempting break in to cars at St Caths

At 14:20 on Tuesday a member of staff spotted two young males trying a number of car doors in St Catherine’s Hospital Car Park near to the church. One of these youths when challenged said he was from Liverpool and just cutting through. It appears that nothing has been stolen but they may return. The local police have been alerted.

They are described as about 5’10ins tall and 19 years of age. One had distinctive ginger hair and was wearing a blue cotton ‘golf’ type jacket. The other had a white T shirt and was wearing a cloth cap.

The local police said that there has been a recent increase in the number of thefts from cars and they request to be informed immediately of any further incidents

Wirral Citizen's Panel Report

I (James Kay) am an individual member of the Wirral Citizens Panel. This means that once every few months I complete a questionnaire which - together with the responses of many hundreds of local citizens in Wirral - goes off to the local authority, health bodiesand others planning local services.

This quarter I have received back a newsletter which tells me what results have come recently from this community consultation and how they have been used. Here is what was said.

"In recent questionnaires, we have asked for your views on a range of topics. These are influencing the planning and delivery of Council services in a number of important areas.

Previous results are being used by the Council as follows:

Local Transport Plan
The Local Transport Plan (LTP) is the joint strategy of the Merseyside Local Authorities and Merseytravel working together to improve transport and encourage the use of sustainable transport options within the area and to support regeneration.

The questions in the 2006 survey were to obtain information on how the LTP initiatives are working and ascertain panel members’ views of them. Respondents were asked what type of transport they generally used and how often. Responses show that 67% travel by private car to work, 71% travel by private car to do grocery shopping, 43% stated that the youngest child walked to school. Respondents were asked about various services provided by public transport and whether they had improved or worsened. The top three areas showing improvement were cleanliness of trains (64%), rail punctuality (49%) and rail reliability (45%). The top three areas of dissatisfaction were value for money in using the bus service (50%), frequency of evening/ weekend buses (40%) and frequency of daytime buses (33%).

The Citizens Panel has helped inform the development of the transport strategy and priorities for LTP2. Citizens Panel information has been used alongside other consultation event feedback and alongside Government guidance to shape the transport strategy and priorities contained within the plan.

Wirral Library Service:
The Panel was asked about how often they visit libraries in Wirral. Almost a third (30%) of panel members said that they visit libraries once a month or more. Almost a third (32%) of panel members said that they visit a public library in Wirral less than once a year.

The Panel results will be compared with results from Wirral Library Service’s own "non user survey" carried out in March 2006. Some of the same questions were used in both surveys, helping to build a picture of barriers to library. The top 3 most commonly stated reasons for not accessing the library more often were ‘lack of time’, ‘buy own books’ and ‘access the internet at home’.

The findings have been used by Wirral Library Service to help focus marketing more closely on particular groups.

Local Heritage:
These questions were prompted by the suggestions of a panel member who contacted us. Panellists were asked about how satisfied they were with heritage attractions in the area and how often they visited them. The top three most visited attractions were Lady Lever Art Gallery (75% visited at least once), Williamson Art Gallery & Museum (71%) and Fort Perch Rock (58%). The top three attractions in terms of overall satisfaction with the experience were Lady Lever Art Gallery (92% satisfied), Williamson Art Gallery & Museum (88%) and Shore Road Pumping Station (86%).

Plans are currently underway to develop a regular programme of customer consultation on local heritage. The Panel results will act as a starting point to build a picture of the place of local heritage in the public mind and find out the popularity and attractiveness of Wirral’s local heritage attractions compared to attractions in neighbouring areas.

The information gathered will be shared with the other attractions named in the survey. The comments, both positive and negative, will be used to help make decisions about future programming and marketing for the section.

Streetscene and Recycling:
Panellists were asked how satisfied they are with various aspects of the Council’s Streetscene service, in particular the design and appearance of street furniture and the maintenance and cleanliness of Wirral’s roads, pavements and verges.

Some of the results are used to measure public satisfaction with the condition/state of repair and the design of various items of ‘street furniture’ (seats, signs, communal bins and bollards) and about overall satisfaction with the design and appearance of Streetscene generally. For each of the particular ‘street furniture’ items, satisfaction in 2006 was lower than in 2004. However, overall satisfaction with “the design and appearance of Streetscene generally” increased slightly since 2004 (52.6%, 53.0%, 56.7%).

The survey has confirmed that one of the priority areas, in terms of low levels of satisfaction, is litter. This has resulted in publicity over the use of fixed penalty notices for littering. A series of education and enforcement programs has been targeted at shopping areas and the routes from these to schools, with the aim of preventing people from dropping litter. New litter bins have also been installed in some areas of the borough.

Community Involvement:
Panel members were asked about whether they are actively involved in their local community. One quarter (25%) stated that they had participated in voluntary and/or community work in the past 12 months. This compares with a slightly higher percentage (28%) in 2005. 70% ‘strongly agreed’ (18%) or ‘agreed’ (52%) that active involvement in the local community can have an influence on decisions affecting their local area. 91% of Panel members thought the range of community activities had got better or stayed the same. 75% of respondents thought support for community activities had got better or stayed the same.

More information about what the Council has achieved, and about what it plans to do next can be found in the Council’s Performance Plan. This is available on the Council’s website and in libraries and One Stop Shops.

www.wirral.gov.uk


.

Church Road Residents Meeting Minutes 25th April 2007

I now have copies of the minutes from the last meeting in April. The next meeting is on the 6th of June - Wednesday - at Royal Standard House - at 2pm

James Kay

Were you married at St Paul’s or at St Luke’s?

As part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the parish which serves Lower Tranmere and parts of Rock Ferry, we are holding an event for those who have been married at one of our churches over the years.

It will be on Saturday 23rd June at 2.30 pm and will consist of a short service of thanksgiving to be followed by refreshments in the church hall and an opportunity for people to catch up with old friends.

If you would like to receive an invitation please contact the vicar, John Chesworth, either by phone on (0151) 645 3547 or by email at
paul_luke@englandmail.com

(Thanks to Jihn Chesworth for this post)

Community Funding Scheme - deadline 15th June

Nearly £200k available for local groups
Voluntary and community groups in Wirral are being invited to apply for £193,000 to fund local projects. Funding is allocated on an annual basis to groups in the 11 areas covered by the Council’s Area Forums.
The deadline for applications is June 15.
For 2007/08 the amounts allocated to each Area Forum are:
• £11,000 from the Council’s Community Initiatives Fund - funding for Voluntary and Community organisations in Wirral for proposals that fit the specific criteria set by each of the Area Forums.
• £3,000 from the community safety Fund - funding for Community Safety projects.
£1,500 from the Local Agenda 21 Fund - funding for environmental /sustainable Projects.
The proposals are assessed by a panel selected by the Area Forum from its members. The panel makes recommendations to the Council's Executive Board where the final decision on the funding is made.
Projects that have recently benefited from grants include:
Groundwork Wirral, who were awarded £1,000 from the Community Initiatives Fund to help towards the cost of engaging an artist to work on Brassey Gardens, a new and exciting recreational space for children to play in. The funding enabled the appointment of an artist, Rebecca Ball-Bryson, to carry out the artwork consisting of six panels, viewed from two windows, thus screening an otherwise unattractive view.
The Tall Ships Youth Trust also benefited. The trust received a total of £1,186.95 across a number of forums to send younger people on voyages. The Trust, which owns two 60-metre training brigs, each capable of taking 48 young people to sea, is dedicated to personal development of young people through sail training experiences. They particularly welcome working with younger people from socially deprived and disadvantaged backgrounds. The trust have used their allocation of funding to send a number of young people from the Oxton, Prenton, Birkenhead, Tranmere, Rock Ferry and West Wirral wards on the life changing voyages, with plans to send even more in the future.
Community Groups wishing to submit an application for funding can get an
application pack by writing to the Community Engagement Team, Corporate Services Department, Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Wallasey CH44 8ED or by phoning 0151 691 8650.
They can also request a pack by emailing engage@wirral.gov.uk

Tranmere Show 24th June

The Tranmere Show goes from Strength to strength. Click on the image below to see the full size poster.

Wirral Carers' Week 11-17 June

People in Wirral who care for a relative or friend will be able to get support, information and advice at events around the borough during Carers’ Week. This year, Carers’ Week will run from Monday, June 11 to Sunday, June 17. In Wirral, the week’s events are being organised by Wirral’s Department of Adult Social Services in partnership with other organisations such as WIRED, the independent organisation which supports carers.

Carers’ Week will get underway on the 11th with an information and advice stand hosted by WIRED in the foyer of Morrison’s supermarket on Dee Lane in West Kirby.
During the rest of the week, there will be information and advice stands in other parts of Wirral including in Liscard on the 12th, Bebington on the 13th and in the Pyramids Centre in Birkenhead on the 14th, 15th and 16th.

The Director of Wirral’s Department of Adult Social Services, Kevin Miller said: “I’m very much hoping that people visiting the information and advice stands will find the help and support available to be genuinely useful. Visitors will be able to ask questions about a wide range of issues that affect carers including direct payments, welfare benefit entitlement, carers assessments and employment issues for carers.”

Linda Roberts, Chief Executive of WIRED added: “We are proud to be working in partnership with the Local Authority and other organisations during Carers week. By providing information points and other events throughout the week, we hope to identify and offer support to people who have caring responsibilities.”

Anyone needing more information about these events or for advice and support about caring for another person can contact the Carers’ Helpline on 670 0777.

Open email to the regeneration team

This is the text of an email I sent to the regeneration team at Wirral MBC to accompany my apologies for the next community consultation meeting - which I can't make.

Please accept my apologies for the next meeting which I won’t be able to make.
Good news since the last meeting is the exemplary response of the wardens and clean up team who have been on the ball when it comes to cleaning up behind the fly tippers and window smashers. The last resident on Seymour Street (No 17) moved out this morning the 19th April so I expect that the vandals will move in some time later today and strip off the gutters, lead, copper, coping stones and anything else they can lay their hands on. If these houses can now be pulled down ASAP that will be a great help.

Bad news has also been the continued activities of local violent gangs who have been very active locally intimidating people – launching a series of raids on the Co-op, breaking their windows, assaulting staff, security guards and on one occasion a police car that was called to attend a disturbance at the Co-op. We have also had a spate of incidents on Liversidge Road, Church Road and Seymour Street with cars vandalised and people – including me – intimidated and threatened.

Against this background the recent claims by the police in the local press that Birkenhead is now much safer than Heswall - don’t go down very well in Tranmere. The police have been more active and have had an impact that local residents notice and are grateful for - but much, much more remains to be done. The police need to further raise their profile and CCTV is a real must-do for us in the regeneration process. We definitely need to make community safety in the new Tranmere a central component in the regeneration strategy for the area. Failure to do so will condemn the area to continue the decline – albeit with newer houses.

How about this for a specific target – make Higher Tranmere so safe that the shops don’t need security guards? That would be the sort of area that people will want to live in. I think we need specific plans on lighting, on CCTV, on policing, and on youth facilities – alongside our housing plans.

Have a good meeting folks.

Sorry I can’t be with you.

James

The minutes of the last residents meeting now follow this blog.

Church Road Residents Meeting March Minutes

Church Road Residents Meeting
Royal Standard House, 7th March 2007 at 2:00pm

Present
Hazel Roberts Resident
Steph Reid Tranmere Alliance
Graham Williams
James Kay Resident
Cllr Phil Davies Wirral Council
Rob Walsh Together
Bruce Lister Lovell
Chris Bowen Wirral Council
Nicola Rigby Newheartlands
Emma Foley Wirral Council

Apologies
John Steele Together
James Hurley Wirral Council

Matters Arising from Previous Minutes

JK asked if item 5.4 from the previous minutes could be re-worded to read.

HR and JK both stressed the importance of providing CCTV in the new retail development, particularly in light of the recent increase in anti-social behaviour by large groups of youths on Church Road. GW said that a recent Church Road Meeting had to be relocated from the Methodist Church due to intimidation by the youths. Cllr Davies said he would speak to Mick Blease to request a greater police presence in the area. The issue will also be taken up by HR at the next JAG.

Cllr Davies said he was pleased that the signage had been installed within agreed timescales.

HMRI Update
CB sported that HMRI funding for Wirral would be around £10 million with an additional £6million of Council resources. A signified amount of this funding will be directed at Tranmere and Rock Ferry. In the last few months the Council has brought in £0.5million from the North West Development Agency and £1million from English Partnerships. It is hoped that a large proportion of the properties in the Church Road Clearance Area will have been brought in by March 2008.

Newheartlands will be bidding for the next round of funding in Autumn 2007.

Development Update
CB said that although the Planning Application had not been submitted, the issues that are outstanding are close to being resolved, hopefully so that the application can be submitted before the end of the month.
It was recognised that the relocation of some businesses was less straight forward than others; however the Council was prepared to go the extra mile to help businesses through this process as far as practicable.
BL said that as far as Lovell were concerned the main Church Road site must be exclusively residential, with the neighbourhood shopping centre on the Abakhan Site.

HR said that she had been to see Frank Field who had said he saw no reason why the outline planning application couldn’t be submitted whilst relocation options were being considered by businesses in the area.

BL said that he had revised the Development Programme based on the outline planning application being submitted at the end of the month. This showed a projected start date at the end of 2007. BL said that rather than start just before Christmas, Lovell would prefer to work to a start date of January 2008.

All sites for Phase 1 of the scheme are vacant with the exception of Waterloo Bathrooms who have now moved down to New Chester Road. Their lease doesn’t expire until April after which time plans will be put in place to demolish the building as soon as possible.

BL is about to commission work on the detailed design in advance of a decision on the outline planning application to speed up the design process – residents will be kept in the loop.

BL asked for views on whether there should be accommodation over the shops. There arguments for building flats included better policing of the shops at night and a better urban form if we build to 2 stories; however, there are concerns about potential management problems of the flats.

SR has been speaking to a couple who run a post office and convenience store in Beechwood and asked if it was likely that they could occupy the large ‘anchor store’ in the new retail development. BL said that it is more likely that the anchor store will be one of the national multiples, but no decisions have yet been made on who this would be.

Marketing & Communications
Newheartlands are organising a Launch Event for the ‘Live Wirral’ branding on 17th May 2007 at Tranmere Rovers Football Club. NR is hoping to get a high profile figure to speak at the event and some suggestions were made.

GW and JK agreed that marketing needs to be aimed at different levels, place marketing to attract new residents into the area, and more localised Marketing Strategy aimed at developing a sense of community and belonging for existing residents.

A.O.B
EF mentioned that Compass Regeneration Academy had a sponsored (free) place available on the next course in April for a resident or member of a community group. The course would be one day a week (Thurs) for 12 weeks and anyone interested needs to be available for all sessions. Anyone interested in learning more about regeneration should contact EF.

RW was asked if he could resurrect the Youth Group which he attempted to facilitate last year. Cllr Davies said the Council are currently reviewing their youth provision. It was agreed that this issue needed further discussions outside the Church Road Residents Group.

Date of Next Meeting

Wednesday 25th April 2006 at 2:00pm, at Royal Standard House, Tranmere.

Even more violence at the Co-op

The cycle of violence at the Co-op seems to go on and on. I went in again yesterday to be told that there had been yet a further outbreak of violence with the same group of young thieves grabbing beer and running out - beating anyone who gets in their way. On this occasion I am told a young female staff member was injured. I am surprised that the Co-op can get staff to work there given the number of violent incidents there have been recently in and around the shop.

I then go home and read in the Wirral News that violence is going down in Birkenhead. Not in the Tranmere bit of Birkenhead it isn't!

We need more assertive policing of this area and a CCTV installation would make us feel more secure. TRACE has called repeatedly over the last two years for CCTV to be part of the security system in the 'new Higher Tranmere'. Now would be a good time!

More violence at Tranmere Co-op

Going past the Co-op on Sunday (1st of April) at about 5pm I noticed the security guard being helped into an ambulance. He had a neck brace on and looked groggy. I went into the shop about ten minutes later and was told that "the same group of lads who had been trying to steal beer and food last week" had been back in with some girls and had tried to steal beer and readymeals. The security guard chased them out and was set upon by thugs wielding wooden staves. The police were called. The staff told me that they know the names of the people concerned and these have been passed on to the police.

I have also been told by other people locally (not Co-op staff) that those who were arrested a few weeks ago - for smashing in the windows at the shop -[the same ones again?] had been released because they were too young to be charged. They had allegedly come back into the Co-op to brag about getting away with it. This may just be a rumour but if it is true it is just not acceptable. If they are old enough to destroy property and hurt people - then they are old enough to bear the consequences. More importantly even than that people in Tranmere need to be protected from these thugs.

What is going on in Tranmere? It feels like the area is sliding into lawlessness. A previous report on this blog (see 1st March below) has talked about violent youth gangs in the area. The Police, local Magistrates and the local media should be working together to make this a no-go area for these types of thugs.

What do you think?

Plans for Leighton Road - footpath to be closed or not?

There has been much talk locally of the plans currently being considered to close the footpath through from Leighton Road and down the hill towards the railway station at Green Lane. If this path is closed it will cut off from Higher Tranmere and its shops all those on the other side of Leighton Road. It will also remove the most direct route to the station from Higher Tranmere. Many of the residents that I have spoken to are cross about this and think that the pathway should be kept open. I am one of those who uses this pathway whenever I go into Liverpool city centre - indeed I will be using it later today.

I have also received complaints from other local residents who have told me that when they moved into their properties adjacent to Leighton Road they were told "... by Riverside Housing that the plan for Leighton Road was to build bungalows for older people." They tell me that they would not have moved into their existing bungalows if they had thought that Leighton Road was to be used for family housing.

Seen the plans?
The new plans - of which I have a full sized copy - call me on 07976 839054 if you want to have a look - show that 16 properties in all are proposed. Four of these are to be two bedroomed bungalows, seven are to be three-bedroomed houses over two floors and five are to be four-bedroomed, over three floors. The plans have been drawn up the Family and Venture Housing Association and were dated on December 14th 2006

I have been sent a copy of these plans by Sue Hooper of the Wirral Council - for which thanks - and she tells me that revised plans are currently being drawn up to include keeping the footpath open.

I am told by one of the local residents - that this change of plan follows complaints to Frank Field MP and to Phil Davies - one of our our local Councillors.

This proposed change will be greeted by many as good news providing that the revised plan is the one eventually adopted.

More Seymour St mess

Readers of this blog and others living in Seymour Street will know that we have been having repeated problems with both vandals and 'do-it-yourself recyclers' - (or thieves depending on your point if view).

These people have been making free with the front walls, guttering, coping stones, railings and any other parts of the now empty homes that can be knocked down, pushed out, pulled over or broken down. The end result for us has been continuous mess with bricks and debris littering the pavement. See this link for a previous story on this matter.

http://tranmereresidents.blogspot.com/2007/02/seymour-street-gets-worse-and-worse.html

(to come back to this story after viewing this link - just hit the back key on your browser)

Last evening - Thursday the 29th of March - at above 7.45 my partner was driving off down the road when she saw a man busy at the back of his van loading coping stones into it . On the pavement was a mess of broken wall, bricks and mortar. Above is a picture of the van and the mess on the pavement, which had not been there 3 hours before.

She came back home - we got out the camera - and I had 'a few words' with the gentleman concerned - who was at the back of his van - as you can also see in the attached photograph. He was most incensed when I suggested that he was causing a nuisance and creating a mess for the rest of us.

He claimed that he was outraged to be accused of this when in fact he was a responsible citizen who had stopped to tidy up the mess, which had been created by others. He had noticed this mess when going past and had gone to get his van and was now busy tidying the street. Now that he had been accused of a crime - that he vehemently denied - he thought he might as well leave - because obviously his best efforts were not being appreciated! He did have several of the cleanest coping stones in the back of his van at the time.

I told him that as I now had a photograph of him at his work he had better tidy up before he left. This he did but when I went past again the following day more rubble had been created and more coping stones had been taken.

I wondered what readers of the blog might think about this.

Responsible citizen, DIY recycler, or ??? what? Leave comments if you like

Local Anti-Bullying Campaign

Schoolchildren from Woodchurch in Wirral have designed their own anti-bullying slogans as part of a campaign to help keep them safe at school and on the streets.

The winning designs have been turned into large A3 posters and these will be put up in GP surgeries, schools, youth clubs, supermarkets. Prizes were presented to seven pupils who designed the winning posters, which have now been professionally printed ready to go on display in the area.

Trish Barnes, Wirral Healthy Schools Co-ordinator, said the children themselves had decided upon the key messages, working with their school councils. “It’s very important that children have their say on something that can affect their lives both in and out of school. “The children made it clear that they wanted to feel safe in school but also out of school when they’re moving around their estate. The posters reflect what the children feel about their need and their right to feel and be safe wherever they happen to be.”

The Mayor Cllr Peter Johnson is pictured with competition winners.

TRACE COMMENT: This looks like a great initiative which should be extended to schools in Tranmere and Rock Ferry. We know from recent surveys that local children have complained of feeling unsafe in the local area because of bullying by local gangs. (look down the blog for this news item or just click on the following link http://tranmereresidents.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-young-people-think-about-tranmere.html

Now you can contact TRACE through this blog

Following a request from a reader I have now included a 'How to contact TRACE' section at the top of the blog - in short just email me at jameslkay@ntlworld.com This panel (on the right here) will stay at the top of the blog. I have also included some local links.

If you can think of any more links we should include - such as your own local organisation - just let me know and I will include it.

James Kay

HMRI briefing leaflet

I don't know if this has been around for a while but my Google alert system has just thrown up this link to a leaflet to give information on the HMRI to local residents. I have not seen this leaflet before.

http://www.wirral.gov.uk/atoz/documents/HMRI.pdf