Have Your Say on Kickstarting Birkenhead Town Centre and St Werburgh’s Renaissance
Birkenhead residents, workers, businesses and visitors are being urged to have their say on the opportunity for a dramatic transformation of Birkenhead Town Centre and the adjoining St Werburgh’s area.
The council is seeking to maximise the prospects for the central Birkenhead area with a focus on attracting more people into the town centre and increasing leisure and residential opportunities.
As part of the Town Centre and St Werbugh’s consultation, those taking part will be asked about improving access to the area and ideas for ensuring people can move through it easily. The consultation will also be asking about options to encourage visitors to spend more time in the Town Centre and St Werburgh’s areas, such as improved leisure facilities, as well as increasing residential uses in the town centre.
In the short and medium-term a key aim is to see greater visitor numbers which will be driven by the relocation of the current market to the site of the former House of Fraser site, new leisure and office facilities and by attracting more shoppers.
Chair of Wirral Council’s Economy, Regeneration and Housing Committee, Cllr Tony Jones, said:
Birkenhead is moving forward incredibly quickly now with a huge number of projects being consulted on. Crucial to this is revitalising the Town Centre and St Werburgh’s areas because they form the key plank in drawing people into Birkenhead and helping in restoring its vibrancy.
I would urge everyone who ever visits or works in and near Birkenhead and those who live in and around the Town Centre and St Werburgh’s areas to take advantage of having their voice and ideas heard for how we can develop Birkenhead as one of the most exciting places to live, visit and work in.
This comes at a crucial time for Birkenhead and follows the recent submission of Wirral’s Local Plan which is focused on brownfield development for the borough. It also comes after the Birkenhead 2040 Framework which outlined the most dramatic ambitions for regenerating Birkenhead since the 1947 Town Plan.
The aim now is to use that 2040 Framework to push forward with a range of schemes which will link up across the town. They form a key part of Wirral Council’s wider Left Bank regeneration proposals which stretch from Bromborough to New Brighton via Birkenhead, Seacombe and Liscard.
The Town Centre and St Werburgh’s masterplans now being consulted on aim to see the town centre “rebalanced and vibrant” and its heritage assets celebrated and fully used.
The public are also currently being asked for their views on the complementary proposed changes to the key Charing Cross junction and improvements for Grange Road and Grange Road West.
For the purposes of this consultation the town centre has Grange Road at its heart and stretches from Claughton Road to The Woodlands, while the St Werburghs area includes St Werburgh’s Square but also covers the proposed new market area, parts of Argyle Street extending as far as Clifton Crescent. (Maps will be available online or at consultation venues).
The nearby Dock Branch Neighbourhood project is also moving ahead along with proposed works on Argyle Street and plans for improvement to the waterfront area and connections between it and the town centre, along with ambitions for the Hind Street urban village development.
The Birkenhead Town Centre and St Werburgh’s consultation launched in December and is open for contributions until 18 January 2023.
Anyone who wants to take part will be able to do so online via the council’s specialist consultation portal where the documents can be viewed and the questionnaire completed. A fully accessible version of the questionnaire will also available via the Council’s ‘Have your say’ website.
It is also possible to visit BirkenED's Place, 8-10 Borough Rd Pavement, Grange Precinct, Birkenhead Ch41 2ZZ. It is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday 11-5pm, to find out more.
The engagement in BirkenEd’s Place being led by independent local social enterprise PLACED, and council officers and members of the design team will be available at BirkenED’s Place to speak to specifically about the Town Centre and St Werburghs consultation. There will be an organised walking tour of the town centre and presentation of the masterplans during this period. Please follow this link for more details https://birkeneds.place/engagement-and-events-2/.
