New government taskforce should prioritise Wirral’s Left Bank
A government taskforce has been set up to spearhead a generation of new towns:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/expert-taskforce-to-spearhead-a-new-generation-of-new-towns
This will “create largescale communities of at least 10,000 new homes each, with many significantly larger.
The new towns will help ……regenerate areas that have been held back for far too long.
a large number will be regeneration schemes that will work with the grain of development in any given area.”
Birkenhead and the wider Left Bank has the potential to accommodate over 20,000 new homes on brownfield land over the next twenty years. A new Waterside Garden Town or City is the vision set out in the 2040 Regeneration Strategy and the new Local Plan.
If the government means what it says, then Wirral’s Left Bank should be at the top of the list when the new task force publishes its recommendations next year.
We have already set out the vision to achieve exactly what the government says it wants.
The government must now recognise that potential and provide the support that places like Birkenhead need.
Some of that support is of course financial. But much of it relies on providing the skills, efficient delivery models and long-term resources that are fundamental for transformative regeneration.
A key failing of the last government was expecting local authorities, ravaged by years of austerity, to deliver rapid, large-scale regeneration when clearly, they are ill-equipped to do so.
We –Wirral Council, elected representatives, local business, community groups and individuals - are now in a nationally unique position to say to government,
- not just that our greenbelt is precious,
- not just that regeneration is essential to address inequalities
- and not just that their draft proposals are deeply flawed and potentially ruinous to Wirral as a place
- but that we already have the vision and the potential to give the government what it wants, and the experience gained over recent years about what does and doesn’t work.
Our task now is not just to challenge the deeply flawed methodology that has generated silly, never to be achieved, housing targets for Wirral. It is also to grasp the opportunity to make our 2040 vision a reality - breathing life into the Left Bank, protecting the Borough’s greenbelt and, crucially, to lobby early and effectively to make that happen.
Accordingly, Green Group co-leaders have today written to our Chief Executive to understand how and when Wirral Council will be engaging with the New Towns task force. Early and effective engagement will be crucial to help secure a brighter future for those residents most in need as well as protecting our precious greenbelt.