Who said “local alcoholics” need clearing from the bench outside Hoylake Library?

We’ve all read it.

The original, pretty outrageous and insulting planning application to convert the former library on Market Street into a gym.

Oh, and to remove the existing trees in front of the building (still owned by council taxpayers, btw – a small factor the council always, always forgets when forgetting about handing over our assets while putting council tax up).

Oh, and the “local alcoholics” who seemingly regularly use the bench betwixt the trees to bark at cars and chase after imaginary friends while whooping about rainwater, or something – although not to be confused with any local Green Party candidates, however tempting.

It wasn’t so long ago that the Hoylake community saved this library from savage Labour cuts.

But it wasn’t for long because they came back with the scythe anyway – while ironically refusing any actual physical cuts to the revolting, unsightly and massively unwanted swamp metastasizing on our immediate coastline.

Naturally, they bleated, this was nothing, in no way whatsoever at all, to do with Wirral Labour being in charge for decades of one of the worst-run boroughs in the entire country. It was all about the “Toreeez”.

But back to the library application to convert it into a gym.

Try to bear in mind these applications to the council are written by people assumed by the council to be professionals – a situation one might suggest is also known in the real world as Einstein’s alleged theory on insanity.

The application itself was placed by Peter and Jennifer “Jenny” Hackett on behalf, one presumes, of their budding gym business, Nomad.

And fair play to them for that. New business is always good. So no complaints there.

But here (click) is that official application on their behalf – the boozers or losers application, if you will – written either by Peter Barton or on his behalf.

Mr Barton advertises himself as an independent planning consultant, who is based just off Argyle Street in Birkenhead, which is not a zillion, million, thousand or even a hundred miles away from the council’s planning department.

He wrote, or approved the writing of, initially on trees: “Their removal is not necessary to allow the change of use to take place but the popularity of the bench with local alcoholics is not a good fit with the applicants’ business model (my italics).

“This is a matter that could be pursued outside the planning application process.”

Residents, many of whom are elderly and enjoy a rest on that very bench while walking between Market Street and Birkenhead Road, were naturally outraged.

When the brown stuff naturally and instantly hurtled into the fan, splattering everywhere, we saw the full force and brilliance of the usual local PR experts – aka berks – thinking they could contain this “crisis” through their expert “management”.

What followed was an explanation from “Jenny” and an apology of sorts:

We just wanted to take the time to first apologise for any confusion this planning application has caused and to reassure everyone that the trees were never to be moved from this site.

“The planning application was written by a third party professional and the wording of this application regarding the bench is not at our request.

“This goes against everything we endeavour to deliver and believe in at Nomad and we want to clarify that it wasn’t written by us.

“The concept of Nomad is built on connection and we want to create a facility where everyone can connect with each other as well as their own mind, body and soul.

“We really are trying to create a harmonic place that will help the community with their physical and mental wellbeing.

“The trees outside the site are a beautiful fixture to both the high street and wider area and we have no intention to remove them.

“In regards to the bench, our plan is to restore it and give it some TLC. We hope to eventually add more seating to the area if it’s allowed and possible.

“Once again, we apologise for any offence caused and would hope that moving forward, you can all see the good things we want to deliver to the community.

“Nomad has been created by a local person wanting to bring positivity to the community so that we can build something special together, whilst helping the Hoylake high street flourish.”

While still happy to give Nomad the slightest of benefits, it’s worth looking at some of the other people that Mr Barton’s planning application expertise has been praised by.

Such as Mark Howard – hero of The Wrecked Beach, The Non-Cinema, The Massive Ugly Building.

Yes, him.

Meanwhile, the Hoylake alcoholics continue to snub the library bench mainly because they never drank there in the first place.

They were all too busy dribbling over the Guardian in the front room of Wetherspoons.

Say Hello (To Taxpayer Money), Wave(s) Goodbye (To Pretending You Know What You’re Doing)

Enjoying the weather?

Chances are, probably not, as Storm Kathleen is having a whale of a time bashing up our western coastline today.

It’s been the first test for Wirral’s great impenetrable sea defence at West Kirby that came in not for a snip – this is Wirral Council we’re talking about – but massively over budget at £19 million of taxpayers’ money.

Now, obfuscating about the source of finances for this project or that project is a tedious game all political entities indulge in, presumably thinking the little people don’t understand all this high-brow stuff.

In this case the council will say the £19m didn’t come out of their budget, which is true. But the money definitely came out of our taxpayer pockets, which is also true.

But other people’s money either way, right?

The Great Wall found its way to construction via the usual labyrinthine route only a local council can fashion:

1. Cook up a mad idea to spend other people’s money that you know voters will hate.
2. Hold consultation. Discover voters do indeed hate it. Decide to do it anyway.
3. Find oddities on the fringe of general society to be the local fall guys when it all goes belly up and throw them a stick.
4. Seek out a quango to hide behind when the results typically aren’t what you had hoped for – despite ignoring deafening advice from others.
5. Apply for public cash.
6. Receive public cash.
7. Waste public cash.

Any heathens who dared to question the veracity of this scheme were given a block response from the council which looked (and looks – until about 9am tomorrow, when no doubt it’ll disappear) like this:

So there you have it. All safe. All smashing.

Right up until this morning when the wall got its first actual stress test….

Which is when we got this instead (if you don’t use Facebook, ask someone who can in order to see the video).

Which itself resulted in this complete and utter idiocy:

Then:

1. Scoff at those pointing out the wall is a £19 million chocolate teapot.
2. Furiously stamp up and down insisting the wall has done its job while literally everyone else takes on the little boy role to point out the emperor is wearing no clothes.
3. Thunderously declare that black is white:

Yes, that’s Green Party councillor Pat Cleary claiming, with what seems to be a straight face, that the wall isn’t really there to stop water, just to make the waves a bit less, erm, tidally. King Canute need not worry just yet.

Although Cllr Pat seemed not to notice that the ferocity of the water – you know, the force of it, Cllr Pat – meant staff working at Tanskey’s on WK promenade had to be rescued by lifeboat crew (brilliant as ever).

Meanwhile, Storm Kathleen will cause havoc for the next couple of days before eventually blowing itself out.

As is now tradition, the next named storm will have as usual a female name beginning with L, the next letter in the alphabet.

Odds on Storm Liz, anyone?

PS. Someone else not enjoying the weather will be the Echo, and the idiots quoted in this at only 11.39am this morning…..

You really couldn’t make it up.

In Memoriam

So. Farewell

Then, Bargain Booze.

You were red and white,

Stocked with shite,

For those with nothing to lose.

You were our own little ice box

From Siberia,

Where even the Arctic feared to tread.

Where every customer who entered,

Contributed to their one day being dead.

No more Pickled Onion

Space Invaders,

For just 10p a pack.

They’ve finally run right out of them,

And there’s still “nothing in the back”.

The random crisps

Will shatter no more

Inside your flimsy plastic “bags”.

And no more meter top ups

For those pesky poor old hags.

Now we mourn your passing,

Like the setting of the sun.

But not as much as

A tab ’til end of the month,

And a cheery “You okay, hun?”

Because now you’re just an Evri,

Parcels inside a room.

An Aladdin’s cave

If you like

For people desperate to lift the gloom.

We’ll miss

That annoying buzzer,

And the icicles dripping from our nose.

But this is Hoylake after all,

And this is how it goes.

At least there’s still

The furniture restorers,

Just across the street.

Even if the pigeons

Don’t exactly keep it neat.

There’s always

The closed chippy one way,

Or the shuttered takeaway next door.

But don’t dare ask about the cinema

As they’ll brand you a repetitive bore.

So now we can’t have a beach

Or even watch a film.

No slap-up, sit-down feasts in

A dining experience bar none,

With no answers to those questions t’whether it’s all really just a con.

But if you wouldn’t all mind shutting up

As you’ll find HVL are on to a winner.

Not for them those buckets and spades

Or family time,

Or even a fancy sit down dinner.

The usual suspects will carry on,

Though only if we let ’em.

“Close it all down and shut it off, keep Hoylake for the righteous:

“The Mad, the T-shirts, the Swampies,

“The oh-so-perfectly pious.”

• With apologies to ER Thribb.

The Swamp Is By No Means “Natural”

By Leigh Marles

New sand dunes don’t just happen in England, or in particular Hoylake.

They’re made by bloody hard work and great attention to detail…

Wearing PVC kecks and a studded leather biker jacket, I turned up for my first day at work building sand dunes at Red Rocks in Hoylake.

It was 1981, and I was in a punk band, signing on the social as almost everyone in a Liverpool punk band was back then.

Without Maggie’s DHSS there would have been far fewer groups around in the early 80s.

But anyway, I was a young guitarist and knew nothing about building sand dunes. 

However some clever people apparently did.

So the dole had had enough of me signing on and playing in a band, although we literally made no money out of it whatsoever, and they set me to work.

My first day on the dunes job and I was sent with a couple of other guys over to Formby in a ten ton truck to load it fully with spartina and marram grass from Formby dunes.

We picked out the grass, stuffed it in the ten tonner and filled it to the brim, so much spartina, masses of it.

We did this every day, month after month, collecting, planting, then off back to Formby for another ten tons’ worth.

It was damned hard work, the grasses would cut through your gloves as your heaved them out of the sand, and you’d always end up bleeding after every shift.

Then we’d drive back to our Pinfold Lane base, off Meols Drive, and started planting it all in the specially prepared seeding areas.

These were vast, sectioned stretches from Red Rocks to West Kirby with fences made out of trimmed wooden posts and wires threaded between.

The wires were then filled with brushwood we collected from Delamere Forest and were needed to protect the growth of the grasses, which in turn allowed the sand to gather and form into dunes

Getting the brushwood was another massive mission, picking and loading ton after ton of branches from Delamere then driving them back to Hoylake, threading them in the wire fences and then off for another load to be worked on the next day.

I left thank god before the project was complete but I can see today it worked.

The brushwood fences are long gone, the spartina grass is now a miasma of all sorts of greenery.

The point I am trying to make is that new sand dunes do not appear by magic no matter how hard you wish.

If you want dunes, for good or ill, they require careful planning, proper management, substantial financial investment, and – most of all – year upon year of really backbreaking hard work, not just putting on a stupid hat and posting glib nonsense on the internet.

Fawkes It

The bad news is that, despite all the evident increases in technology and online research capabilities, despite Attenborough researchers finding a way of filming inch-long translucent jellyfish miles below the sea surface, and despite even Elon Musk (possibly) waking up for the traditional 5am middle-aged gentleman’s visit to the bathroom in between sending rockets into space, there still doesn’t seem to be an available image of a real bulldog licking the proverbial wee off a nettle.

The good news, though, is that we don’t need one, thank goodness.

Instead, we can satisfy ourselves with the thought of the self-styled Hoylake saviour that nobody ever asked for, wandering around Melrose Hall today quietly snarling at people supporting the return of the beach from the absolute stinking and visually appalling swamp he’s helped and encouraged to create.

The sign above, on the advertising hoarding board on Melrose Avenue opposite The Ship, has proved troublesome for Our Jools.

He doesn’t think people should be encouraged to disagree with him, you see.

But this notice was probably a bit too high to destroy, so it stayed up.

Not that it needed it, but the attendance today proved what Julian Priest and his equally fantastically unpopular “sorry if we missed you” mob (it was on every leaflet they swiftly shoved through letterboxes before the local elections earlier this year where they nevertheless drastically failed) simply cannot seem to fathom, a bit like those kids at school, the ones who smelled of malted milk biscuits, when asked to contemplate the idea of shoelaces:

We. Want. Our. Beach. Back.

Not your sand-yachting beach, Our Jools.

All of it.

Today’s lesson for you, OJ Simpleton, was staring reality in the face.

Real people who really disagree with you – and, also, wonder, quite fairly, when did you get put in charge? Who voted for you? Who on earth are you?

Another lesson, also, should be whenever you gaze at that monostrity you helped (with Our Mark Howard) to create at the top (or now bottom, thanks to you guys) of Market Street that now taints the vista of the entire village.

All of these people are now running as fast as they can in their too-small T-shirts and hideous Hawaiian shorts seemingly somehow pretending that the swamp and the Lubyanka are nothing whatsoever to do with them.

But there’s still a swamp.

And there’s still no cinema, no fine arts village, no five star restaurant.

So, thank you to Hoylake Sailing Club and all involved on both creation and clear-up for a magnificent bonfire display on Friday evening (criticised, as ever, by the usual suspects, for “endangering sand” or whatever, and thankfully ignored).

And thank you to the Hoylake Beach Community for today’s undoubtedly successful event.

But the real fireworks should start now with simple answers to simple questions.

When we attended the original launch of the utterly ludicrous beach plan, ironically at the disused building site once known as the town hall before this lot got their hands on it, we were told – instructed – that the event was a “safe space” where dissent was not allowed.

Well, Our Jools, that was many years ago. And the gloves are now off.

So:

Where’s the cinema, Julian?

Where’s the high-dining restaurant, Julian?

Where’s the arts’ village, Julian?

And why did hardly anyone vote for you, Julian?

And, most importantly, after wrecking things most people actually from Wirral hold dear, why on earth are you still even here?

PS. Can’t wait for their, um, PR “wordsmith” to come back at this.

Let Me In, Whisper The Watermelons

Our Julian and Our Jane are apparently on a mission to pretend the local elections that took place nearly three months ago never happened.

That was when both, standing as Green Party candidates for Wirral Council, were utterly humiliated at the ballot box.

But like all aspiring politicians, they’ve resolutely refused to stare punishing defeat in the face and are back on the trail.

As our hysterically called “climate boiling” (even though, while clearly climate change is a thing, literally nothing is “boiling”; but it sounds kinda catchy, and the UN nobodies in their fine suits and fancy HQs and endless private jet-setting to talk with other finely suited and private-planed contemporaries, all paid for by us, try to justify their own existence less anyone realises the whole self-serving shambolic mess is not fit for purpose) continues to see us considering the need to put the heating on in, er, July, and the usual suspects flit around talking about mostly arson-fired blazes in continental Europe as the Beginning of the End of the World that they’ve been predicting every ten years or so since long before I was born 50-odd years ago, and yet still spectacularly and stubbornly refuses to play ball, they have produced a new leaflet.

And as much as we detest the idea of giving them any publicity at all, it’s worth pointing out what’s in their promo material, and what isn’t.

First: “Green Community Campaigners”.

Well, yes. Because these two are largely responsible for that hideous green swamp that was once called Hoylake Beach. Them, and that other eco warrior, Our Josh.

I won’t bother with their quotes because they’re too asinine, but look at the strapline at the bottom mentioning “Working All Year Round…”.

Just not on that promised two-screen cinema, fine dining restaurant, arts village, and vortex to Utopia (okay, maybe not that last one) that has already cost taxpayers £3m and we still don’t know why designing a menu costs 8k, eh, Our Jools?

And then this on the back:

Alas, no space for the question: Would you like us to just sod off so we can have our beach back?

So, welcome to The Watermelons. Green on the outside, red, with dark pips, within.

If you should be unfortunate enough to hear an unexpected knock at the front door, or the trembling ring on a nervously-pressed doorbell, don’t say you weren’t warned…

And just to repeat: Where IS that cinema, Our Jools?

Wirral West MP to stand down at next general election, but will anyone notice?

Margaret Greenwood has signalled her intent to stand down as the Member of Parliament for Wirral West at the next general election, widely expected to be held next year at the latest.

By then she will have been the constituency’s representative for nine years, after first taking her place on Westminster’s green benches after winning the seat from the Conservative incumbent Esther McVey in 2015.

We’re not entirely sure why Ms Greenwood ever really wanted to represent the area, though, as she doesn’t seem to care for it very much.

She supports the swamp, which is now spreading outwards to both West Kirby and Meols, with cunning plans to eventually not-so-stealthily also ruin the beaches of Leasowe, Moreton, Harrison Drive, New Brighton and Egremont, too, all in the name of dodgy ideology.

Even so, a near decade in the corridors of power is something only a rarefied few get to experience, so here’s a list of Ms Greenwood’s greatest achievements as our local MP:

1. Getting voted in.
2. Deciding to quit.
3. Er, that’s it.

Why the sandy beach versus the creatures of the swamp local election results really do matter

Much has been made over the last couple of years about the Chris Packham effect.

It’s where the telly star’s fans leap onto things he says on Twitter and agree with anything he chirps.

Amiable, presentable and intelligent, Mr Packham comes across as the environmental equivalent to what Harry Styles is to teenage girls.

His BBC-funded profile means he’s guaranteed to put bums on seats and get people like Deborah Meadon, off of Dragons’ Den, that we also have to pay for under threat of jail, who has seemingly never met a weed she doesn’t like, in a froth.

It was because of Mr Packham’s intervention into the Hoylake Beach debate – a beach he has, as far as we’re aware, never put his mossy, ever so sensible boots upon – that got the swampies ever so excited.

Finally, they figured, a bloke off the tellybox with a Starmer-esque bouffant and southern accent, resplendent in a yellow puffer jacket, could lead them towards the eternal Gaia glory that they seek – and hopefully take the rest of us along with him, too.

The only problem is that Chris Packham, for all his qualities and aims, is not a politician.

He leaves that stuff to others.

And one of those others, smack bang in Hoylake and Meols ward earlier this month, was none other than Julian Priest, who stood for the Green Party.

His aim, we can only assume, was to show how much support there is locally for him and his odd little tiny band of swampies who apparently detest sand and family fun and everyone else in Hoylake and Meols but absolutely love weeds.

Now, clearly, we’re not chums.

But even we can praise him for having the cojones to stand for public office and along the way, giving the public a chance to support him, or not. It takes balls to do that, so fair play.

Sadly, however, it did not work out so well.

“The league,” my friend always tells me, albeit only ever during that brief period every year when his Everton team spends a nanosecond above my Liverpool, “doesn’t lie”.

And what the league of local election results tells us here is that out of all possible voters in Hoylake and Meols, where voters are most acutely affected by the state of the beach, Our Jools, crusader of a still non-existent cinema, enthusiastic supporter of a swamp, and of course aficionado of bagels, was supported by a mere 3 per cent of them.

Nor did his Green Party comrades draw realistic support in the ward, either. As you can see above, 5, 4, 3 per cent, in that order. With Our Jools last.

They did manage to beat the Liberal Democrats, though. And something called the Freedom Alliance.

But has it stopped their insatiable desire to pretend everyone agrees with them?

Not a jot.

They’re back posting unprovable nonsense about people digging their weeds up from the beach.

Sure, someone might have dug it up. If they were absolutely crank-a-thon bonkers.

Because why pluck just one when there’s a massive former beach packed, thanks to these extremists, to the gunwales with them?

Or then there’s the actual “sea”, which still comes in twice a day, though not high tides all the time, which could also be responsible.

Will our wannabe botanists spend any time at all shouting at the waves?

But still, on it goes.

Jane Turner, one of the leading swamp campaigners, also stood for the Green Party (who overall did relatively well in the local elections) in the Moreton and Saughall Massie ward.

She also managed only to attain a 3 per cent share of the vote.

But what’s actual numbers and facts between friends?

The lovely Jane appears to think her ideology is countering “the wrong side of the biggest issue in human history”.

We suggest, given her woeful lack of voter support, she now attempts at least to grow up, and maybe spends some time listening to people who really have witnessed “the biggest issue in human history” – the Holocaust.

You never know: The great sage herself might learn something.

Green with frenzy – on a wing and a prayer, Our Jools enters the fray

In what no one anywhere would ever consider exciting news, the local council elections loom.

In Wirral, that means all 66 of the council seats are up for grabs.

There is no point whatsoever in any parties or their supporters or indeed voters at large getting excited about it, though, because we all know, through dreary experience, what is going to happen.

Thanks to the block-voting in Birkenhead, and most of Wallasey, the two largest conurbations we have, Labour – well, Wirral Labour, because there is a difference – will win.

And, tediously, on we will march ever towards the self-consuming oblivion of life in Wirral as we know it.

Not because of the tidal waves and wild fires that the ridiculous “wall” in West Kirby is supposed to save us all from (which it won’t, because it’ll never be needed in any case, and besides, what’s £16m-and-counting of our money between friends?), but because of the moronic quacking robots – think “for mash get Smash” – in the town hall.

They’ll tell you anything you want to hear, obviously, come hell or high water, but this is what you’ll actually get anyway, yet again:

• More pointless £££s office blocks to be built in Birkenhead town centre for the council to move into from, er, another office block somewhere else in Birkenhead, which is always a great investment of public money when many office workers – and most especially civil servants meant to work in town halls or government ministries – now opt to work from home, and high streets grow more deserted than ever.

• Look forward to shiny artist “impressions” of pipe dreams from ambitious young town planners who will very soon realise that their earnest toil has been entirely pointless, because all they’ll end up creating in reality is empty office blocks occupied by pigeons and enthusiastically unused cycle lanes.

• Watch people swap an equally shiny chain each year so they can eat toffee apples, open shops, snip ribbons, glad-hand anyone who asks, and build up a photo portfolio they’ll quickly store in the loft when they can eventually fit back up the stairs, to then be instantly forgotten.

Same old, same old. And that’s it – normally.

But there are of late some new kids on the block in the form of the Green Party, who have started to make inroads into the local political system – albeit as lowly partners, but very much enablers, to Wirral Labour.

This is not in itself a bad thing. More political plurality should be welcomed by all of those who believe in democracy – even way out there on Wirral’s far left, who don’t believe in democracy at all, because in their myopic minds they’re right about everything and that’s that.

So what, you may wonder, has any of this to do with Hoylake Beach?

Well, we note that bagel-loving Julian Priest is standing as a Green Party candidate for the Hoylake and West Kirby ward.

Which means for the next few weeks or so, he or his representatives will be asking for your vote.

Now, bearing in mind there are an estimated 97% of adults in Hoylake and Meols in favour of having a clean beach, rather than the swamp that is down there now because of Priest and his Hoylake Village Life/Vision/Beacon/Blancmange/Mangetout/Doobedoobedoo cronies, we wonder how’ll he tackle that when it no doubt comes up on the doorstep – if, that is, he openly admits who he really is, which is The Man Who Helped Ruin The Beach.

We also wonder how he will cope with questions about the Black Lubyanka monstrosity at the top end of Market Street, an eyesore which still isn’t a cinema and nowhere near close to becoming one despite all the (public) money thrown at it.

Let’s just face it. It’s a block of flats. With six parking spaces.

Our Jools gets quite vexed when any of this is mentioned, because, you know, he’s full of – no, not that – “vision”, just like his Keith Lemon-lookalike pal who appears to have gone relatively quiet ever since settling into his new sinecure down at the old Kingsmead School site.

Vexed, because they simply cannot stand being challenged about anything.

Presenting their “vision” – god help me – for Hoylake beach a few years ago, Priest – clad, as ever, in a terrible, unfitting T-shirt – declared the meeting a “safe space” where no dissent, or indeed impertinent questions, were allowed.

But your doorstep is most definitely not Priest’s “safe space”.

It is, however, most definitely yours.

So I would encourage you to take the opportunity to make your case, while he’s stood there on your property, begging you for support, about the state of the beach which he has championed; or the non-existent “cinema” that he has also championed; to ask him what a woman actually is; and ask if he can deduce that 2+2 equals 4 without breaking out into a sweat because he’s concerned he may have left a different number out.

Also, ask him why he wants to close off the prom to traffic – the only alternative to Market Street, which his cronies would also like to somehow turn into a town square, stifling traffic even more.

These are not difficult questions to ask of people wanting your vote.

So make sure you quiz Our Jools.

It’s your “safe space”, after all.

NB:

• We couldn’t be bothered to get involved in a Facebook thread this week that saw a pro-swamp union guy insist he was speaking in “facts” when saying the beach is, emphatically to him, not a swamp.
• Yet according to National Geographic, a somewhat respected journal of record and discovery, and staffed by people who aren’t in bad T-shirts or questionable biological pedigree, a “swamp is an area of land permanently saturated, or filled, with water”.

Showbiz conundrum

It’s tough being on an employment hiatus, but life can take interesting twists.

Such as: Has Hoylake’s “resting” ageing Alan Carr-lookalike ever been seen in the same room as Sam Smith?

Answers to Deadwood’s house, please. He needs the attention. And probably someone else’s missus.