Birthplace of the Scouts honoured in Birkenhead improvement works
The role of Birkenhead in the formation and development of the international Scouting Movement is being celebrated in the new street furniture and public realm features that will be installed as part of the ongoing town centre improvement schemes.
It was in January 1908 that the founder of the Scouts, Robert Baden-Powell, officially inaugurated the movement on a visit to the former YMCA building on Grange Road in Birkenhead and, alongside it, also created the first and second official Scout groups in the world.
The 1st Birkenhead group may have disbanded in the years since, but the 2nd Birkenhead Scouts, now based on North Road, is still going strong and is recognised as the oldest Scout group in the world.
The former YMCA building is now the home of Primark and is at the heart of the improvement works that are currently underway in Birkenhead town centre.
New paving and street furniture earmarked for installation in the new year along Grange Road is set to include a number of visual and written celebrations of notable Birkenhead ‘firsts’, including the new ‘Scouting Square’ recognising the formation of those first Scout groups with bespoke benches, paving stones and a plaque being installed near Primark.
The improvements being made at Charing Cross and Grange Road – as well as along Conway Street and Europa Boulevard – are very much part of Birkenhead’s brighter future, with a number of regeneration projects set to follow in the coming years.
However, it is exciting to see Birkenhead’s notable history also being reflected in the current works. As well as telling people about the town’s unique contribution to the worldwide Scouting Movement on Grange Road, other historic places such as Birkenhead Priory – the oldest standing building on Merseyside – and Birkenhead Park, which provided the blueprint for many of the world’s most-loved urban, public parks, will also be celebrated within the new streetscape.
The works taking place in two parts of Birkenhead town centre are designed to make those areas more attractive to visitors and shoppers and improve accessibility and safety for all road users, including cyclists and pedestrians.
Funded from a combination of sources, including the UK government’s Future High Street Fund (FHSF) and Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s Active Travel fund, the programmes will complement the wider Birkenhead regeneration plans that are already underway in the town.
Public works of this scale inevitably bring a degree of disruption and inconvenience to residents, businesses and the wider Wirral public looking to spend time in central Birkenhead for shopping and leisure – however, efforts are always made to minimise this as much as possible.
The clear message is – even while parts of the town centre are currently affected by active construction works and there are some delays to traffic flow, particularly at peak times – Birkenhead town centre remains very much open for business, shopping and leisure.
Birkenhead is well served by public transport and there is ample public car parking available to get visitors in and out of the town centre quickly and conveniently.
