Wirral News letters: April 13

Apr 13 2011 by Our Correspondent, Birkenhead News

Proud of our delights

I READ your Wish You Were Here article with great interest and total agreement.

A few years ago I took my ageing father for a week’s holiday in Jersey. We had absolutely perfect weather. However, the holiday was a disappointment to both of us as we thought Wirral could knock spots off Jersey and we wished we had stayed at home.

Wirral’s great attraction is the diversity of tasteful entertainment it has to offer over a quite small area.

Transport is not a problem. We have museums, art galleries, theatres, the first rate Chester Zoo, Ellesmere Port Blue Planet, Spaceport.

Port Sunlight, Thornton Hough, Eastham, Heswall, Hoylake, West Kirby, Mollington, Christleton and Guilden Sutton are outstanding examples of lovely places to visit.

Our parks and open spaces are lovely and FREE. We have over five lovely local nature reserves, 23 regionally important geological sites, over 10 sites of special scientific interest, 70 sites of biological importance and a butterfly park, with Hilbre Island and little and big eyes being special treats.

A 358% Wirral web interest seems rather minimal when one considers the extent to which one could maximise utilising Wirral’s many and varied attractions.

Diane Buxton (Mrs)

Bromborough

Ness is great

I CAN’T believe you missed out Ness Gardens from your piece on places to visit in Wirral. I went there today and it was blissfully beautiful and so peaceful.

There were people of all ages really loving the place.

The gardens are undergoing really exciting changes – eg a HUGE new herbaceous border going in for this year, the150th anniversary of AK Bulley’s birth. He was the major sponsor of the adventurous planthunters of the early 1900s who risked their lives to bring plants back to the UK – and is responsible for so many of the camellias, rhododendrons, magnolias, primulas, that are now common in British gardens but which were then unimagined.

The gardens are filled with rarities – one tree species at Ness has only 12 left growing wild in its native Japan – and Ness has 30 of them!

Please give this amazing place the notice it deserves ... If we don’t use these wonderful places, one day we could lose them.

Jenny Grimshaw

via email

Media interest

I WAS interested to read your piece on the increase in searches for Wirral on Hotels.com.

Could the media have something to do with Wirral’s growing popularity?

The forthcoming Golf Open will bring a lot of tourists but as well as this, a recent episode of Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me featured participants from Wirral and West Kirby has been named as a desirable location in a national newspaper.

Furthermore BBC1’s new comedy, Candy Cabs, seems to have been filmed largely in the Wirral.

Geoff Walmsley

via email

Why no protest?

I MUST admit to having been surprised by the low turnout to protest against rising tunnel charges.

Hey, good on you who turned out. I hang my head in shame that I wasn’t with you.

And yes, I guess the turnout figures could have been affected by the Mother’s Day factor. But perhaps deeper than this may lurk the same factors as to why the general public are not up in arms concerning fuel, power or food prices either.

It’s not long ago we were so incensed by fuel costs, it mobilised us into organised yet angry picketing of Shell.

Look at the prices now!

Maybe it’s because we’re all pigged-off with it all and have resigned ourselves to the easier “yeh whatever!” factor brought on by a largely faceless and seemingly uncaring government of whatever party and some bungling, petty bourgeoisie local councillors.

What’s the point of protesting against the deaf ears of this lot?

Is this really where we’re at or am I just a cynical grumpy old man?

But look, you in government, history does have a few memorable cases where there may come a time when the worm turns and the majority start to look around for real answers to questions in the vacuum of effective leadership; a hand in their own destiny.

A time perhaps when strong leaders with their more sinister agendas emerge as a panacea for the mistreated and mushroomed managed general public.

Hmmmmm, didn’t the little moustachioed Austrian man get his foothold amongst a generally frustrated, nation? No surely not! Sit down you grumpy old fool and shut up I hear you say. OK, I will.

Robert Lewis

Birkenhead