PROFESSOR Harding’s Wirral is too small - by half!

Sep 5 2007 by Sue McCann, Birkenhead News

By supporting the location of a sculpture or “icon” halfway up Wirral, at the modern borough boundary, he is reinforcing a recent, artificial, political boundary on to the peninsula when, in fact, geography and a much longer period of history - the ancient Wirral Hundred - define our peninsula as extending right down to the outskirts of Chester.

Over the past 30 years or so, the roadside signs announcing Welcome to Wirral at Gayton and Eastham, along with the parochial attitudes of the local councils that make up the peninsula, have brainwashed our visitors and younger residents into thinking that Wirral is only half the size it is.

If we are to emphasise the unique identity of Wirral, as opposed to the smaller part that is the modern political Borough of Wirral, we should ensure that any Wirral icon is placed at the appropriate location - for example, on the exit roads from Chester - so that all who visit will come to know the true identity of our wonderful peninsula.

KENNETH BURNLEY

Politically correct killjoys

I WAS concerned that a recent letter from an RSPCA member, complained about children catching crabs in the Marine Lake at New Brighton.

The process of dangling a piece of bacon in a fine mesh bag has been going on for as long as I can remember, and I’m an octogenarian.

There was once a crab catching competition for children.

Each child was given a large plastic bucket to put the crabs in. The excitement when a crab was caught was a joy to behold.

At the end of the contest the small crabs were counted to determine the winner, and the crabs were returned to the lake.

The fact that the odd ill informed person takes a few home is no excuse for some killjoy to ban it.

Earlier this year I went into the garden one evening with a torch to try to catch the snails, which were destroying my Hostas.

A man who was passing, seeing the torchlight asked me what I was doing.

When I told him I was killing the snails because they were eating my lovely plants, he said that I should not be killing them because they had a god given right to eat.

And he was serious.

Now the politically correct madmen are running the Asylum, I wouldn’t be surprised if we soon have a RSPCI - Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Insects.

DFC HOPKINS

PRENTON

Shops not needed

IT IS good news for the area that plans are now well under way for regeneration of the Oxton Road area with hundreds of apartments and various retails units.

However, I query the need for these additional retail units as Wirral is already cursed with more shops than it needs.

The council seems to be obsessed with the idea that every new shop provides long term employment.

This is not the case - but then our elected councillors do not have much business experience.

Throughout the borough, including Oxton Road, there are shuttered, semi-derelict shops.

For every new one that opens, there will be one that loses it trade and closes down, bringing more dereliction.

D ROBERTS,

PRENTON

Where is the class?

WHAT a sad/negative letter from G Wood, Wallasey saying Wirral is far more classy than Liverpool?

Beatles Festival - who cares?

They are history and no one beyond the age of 50 can really feel affinity within this era, unless their parents or peers teach them.

What have the Beatles done personally for Wirral?

As for Wirral being classier - how come we have so many stories in our newspapers about violence and corruption?

Don't forget Wirral has a smaller population than Liverpool.

Were the people being sick and smoking drugs I saw at the Wirral Show from Liverpool?

Finally, I live in Heswall and am considering moving from a 'respectable' area to Wales or somewhere similar, as my 12 year old daughter is worried about violence on the streets of Wirral.

S MASSIE

HESWALL

Find this idiot

MEMBERS of my family live in Valley Road, Bromborough.

They have two cats and both have been shot in the head with a high-powered air rifle in separate incidents.

The cats lived but each has lost and eye and are therefore blind on one side. One was X-rayed and a .22 pellet was recovered. The other was found to have a pellet lodged near the brain

The trajectory and injuries suggest a rifle with telescopic sights fired from a bedroom window in the Valley Road area.

Somebody must know who has done this. Please report him or her to the police. If this weapon is powerful enough to fire a pellet through the skull of an animal, it is powerful enough to do the same to a child. Maybe your child or grandchild playing in his own rear garden and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

B J MURRAY,

BROMBOROUGH

Illegal fly-posting

NOW that the public meeting to Stop the War has been and gone, can we ask when the organisers are going to remove the hundreds of fly-posters from around New Brighton and Wallasey?

Fly-posting is against the law and we know how strongly the organisers feel about actions that are illegal.

We do not believe the council tax payer should have to pick up the bill for removing these posters from walls, phone boxes, utility boxes and lamp posts.

SUE TAYLOR, CLLR BILL DUFFEY, CLLR TONY PRITCHARDNEW BRIGHTON CONSERVATIVES

Disappointing

I AM so disappointed the negativity about the proposed redevelopment of Neston town centre.

Most would appear to come from old Neston residents who remember the town as I do when we moved here 35 years ago.

There was a wonderful choice of shops including men’s and women’s clothes shops. But times have changed and too many Neston residents now shop out of the town. It has been estimated that £24m is spent elsewhere every year.

We have got to increase the footfall in Neston town centre. Ask the small businesses in the town if they are doing well and most will say they are just keeping their heads above water.

The main criterion is to encourage local residents to shop locally. They are obviously not happy with the current choice and we must get some of that £24m spent back within the town.

Shoppers using Somerfield do not walk as far as the town centre to use the small shops so using the old dairy site will not help.

Neston Civic Society has asked Tesco a number of times to consider extending its local shop and the last refusal was because it would take business from its new Heswall store.

If we cannot encourage residents to stay and do their shopping in Neston, then the town centre will continue to go downhill and more shops will close.

We cannot preserve old Neston “in aspic”. We just hope that a new supermarket in the centre of Neston will bring more trade back. It has worked in other small towns. Please give it a chance.

JANET GRIFFITHS,

NESTON CIVIC SOCIETY

Disgusted at order

IT WAS much to my disgust when I read the article “New powers to disperse youths” and discovered that the Anti-Social Behaviour Act is being flaunted yet again in our borough.

This poor piece of legislation deals with anti-social behaviour in a fundamentally flawed manner as it merely perpetuates the image that the media has created of my generation. ‘

“Yob culture, binge drinking nation and ASBO generation” are all negative terms attributed to and pinned on my generation, to which I feel strongly compelled to remind the general public that the vast majority of under-21s are hard-working law-abiding citizens.

The Anti-Social Behaviour Act is just not properly designed to combat the anti-social behaviour that is occurring as it does not look at the root cause of this problem.

Reputable research has shown that just over a third of under-17s who have an ASBO have some sort of mental disorder. This can range from a low learning age, to ADHD, to autism. If we use the money spent on imposing and ensuring curfews, tagging and area banning, for treatment of these mental disorders and helping these people who may have fallen out of education, back into a form of education that suits them, this would surely benefit society in the long run.

Designating an area is a money-saving option that makes community support officers’ jobs easier by being able to identify possible offenders, by their age, location and most often by their clothing, so that they can be reprimanded and moved on. The only real way I can see to combat this behaviour is to have a more visible police presence, who will arrest people committing criminal offences, not just moving on anyone who fits a stereotype.

West Kirby and Greasby have both had designated areas within the last few years - could it possibly be the people are just moving their social life a few miles down the road every time one of these bans comes into force? First designated areas, then what, blanket curfews for under-18s?

RICHARD QUAYLE,

MEOLS