Wirral tip site marked for ski slope

Feb 5 2010 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Daily Post

Ski slope

A NEW ski slope could be built in Merseyside on the site of a former rubbish tip.

The ambitious plan is being proposed by local ski groups for the former landfill site at Bromborough, Wirral.

Last month, the Northwest Development Agency (NWDA) offered the Forestry Commission almost £2.4m to transform the old Bromborough waste landfill site.

Last night Alan Jones, of the North West Ski Federation, said: “We are still at the suggestion stage and I know that the Forestry Commission and the NWDA have a range of options to consider under quite strict criteria.

“There could be insuperable technical problems, being a landfill site, but I am hopeful that the difficulties can be overcome without prohibitive expense.”

The current plan for the former tip site has been put together under the Newlands programme and the Mersey Coastal Park Strategy, and will include extensive landscaping.

Trees and grass will be planted, benches, paths and cycle tracks laid, and local MP Ben Chapman has been pressing for an “iconic sculpture” to be erected at the new park’s highest point. The site has ceased to be a landfill and work is ongoing to “cap it off”, and it could be 2012 before it would open as public space.

The skiers hope to have their plans considered early on in the planning for the site, before any changes are made which will make creating a ski slope prohibitively expensive.

Mr Jones said the ski slope at the nearby Oval, in Bebington – which re-opened recently after it was closed to be overhauled – no longer met the needs of most local skiers.

Mr Jones said: “I have no doubt that a well-designed and well- managed facility at the right price would be heavily used.

“While a ski centre would only require part of the site, it would need to form an integral part of the planning. It is not the sort of thing that could be added at the end as an after-thought. Many of the earlier ones, like the Oval, were built at a time when it was thought that all that was needed was a small slope as an introduction to the sport before the first ski holiday.

“However, the sport has moved on dramatically with the introduction of much longer, mainly commercial slopes and skiers’ aspirations have risen accordingly.”