Welcome to “Sunday Snippets” a weekly feature from birkenhead.news. It is a round-up of important local news stories from the last seven days. Click or tap on each story to read the full article.
Community day to spruce up charity’s resource centre
Wirral Society of the Blind and Partially Sighted (WSBPS) is running a community project to help re-furbish its Ashville Lodge Resource Centre on Ashville Road, Birkenhead.
During the long periods of lockdown due to COVID-19 restrictions, the centre was closed and this has resulted in the centre falling into a state of disrepair and looking a bit forlorn.
WSBPS has set a community challenge day called ‘The Celebrating Senses Project’ on Saturday 30 April. The Celebrating Senses project will involve a day when local business leaders and members of the community will come together to do an interior makeover of two rooms at the Ashville Lodge site, in celebration of the charity welcoming the Merseyside Society for Deaf People (MSDP) team and it’s members to the Lodge.
Wirral awards its highest honour to the 97th victim of Hillsborough
The 97th victim of the Hillsborough disaster, Andrew Devine, has been posthumously awarded the Freedom of Wirral at an extraordinary meeting of the Council last night (Monday 21 March, 2022).
The Council agreed unanimously to grant the borough’s highest honour to Andrew, who sadly passed away, aged 55, in July last year due to complications resulting from the injuries he received at the Hillsborough stadium disaster in April 1989.
The 96, including 12 people from Wirral, had previously been awarded of the Freedom of the Borough on 15 September 2017.
Summertime opening hours to start for recycling centres
Liverpool City Region residents will soon have the opportunity to recycle more as Household Waste Recycling Centres open for an extra three hours every day.
From Friday 1 April the region’s Centres will be open from 8.00am until 8.00pm.
There are 14 Household Waste Recycling Centres in the region. They are operated by resource management company Veolia on behalf of Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority (MRWA.)
Wirral firm calls on other businesses to join fundraising challenge
When local accountants The Accountancy Partnership read on the birkenhead.news website about Thingwall resident Norman Lovely donating his £500 prize money back to the charity after winning Stick ‘n’ Step’s Christmas raffle, they immediately contacted the charity to learn more, and see what they could do to help.
Helping children with cerebral palsy feel more independent and confident Stick ‘n’ Step provide free conductive education to children with cerebral palsy, helping them become more independent and confident.
Receiving no government funding, it’s up to them to raise the £5,500 needed for just one child to attend their Wallasey and Runcorn centres for one year. With over 100 children attending each week, it’s a lot of money to find.
Council leader outlines how Wirral’s Local Plan will ‘deliver real change’
Wirral Council’s leader has laid out an ambitious vision for the future of the borough which will focus on ensuring regeneration works for all communities.
At a meeting of the full council (Monday 21 March) Cllr Janette Williamson outlined how the Local Plan will help Wirral meets its housing and employment needs in the coming years – and how this will be focused on reducing deprivation.
The leader said the draft Local Plan sets out a way forward for the borough to use major regeneration opportunities on Wirral’s Left Bank (the eastern side from Bromborough through New Ferry, Birkenhead, Seacombe and Liscard to New Brighton) to “deliver real change” and tackle inequalities.
Parkgate reedbed to take two years to recover
The RSPB reserve team has now assessed the damage caused by Saturday night’s fire at Neston Reedbed near Parkgate.
About 10 hectares (approx equivalent size of 17 football pitches) of the marsh was burnt in the fire, including all the reedbed vegetation and some areas of saltmarsh vegetation.
While the RSPB is hopeful that the root systems have survived, and that the reeds will grow back over the coming years, there is no chance of wildlife successfully nesting in those areas in the coming months.
Campaign to encourage more people in Wirral to be physically active
‘Be Part of the Movement’ is a new campaign to encourage Wirral residents to make sport and physical activity part of their everyday life.
Funded by the Government’s Welcome Back Fund it will showcase the borough’s facilities and open spaces as safe places to improve health and wellbeing especially as communities continue their recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The campaign is part of Wirral Council’s new Sport and Physical Activity Strategy approved by the authority’s Tourism, Communities, Culture and Leisure Committee in January.
REVIEW: L J Boden’s ‘By a Thread’
L J Boden’s ‘By a Thread’ is a rollercoaster tale of the life of a young man and his group friends in early 1990s’ Wirral.
Seemingly often drawing on the experiences of the author, we join our protagonist, Jonno, on his treacherous travels through early adulthood.
During the course of the book, Jonno is trying his damnedest to cope with peer pressure, girls, drugs, crime, and the early 90s’ clubbing scene. Often, these factors get the better of him, often by a long chalk.
Pump track opens in Wallasey’s Central Park
A fantastic new free facility for cyclists, skateboarders, roller skaters and scooter users of all ages in has now opened in Wallasey’s Central Park.
The new pump track allows children and young people to exercise and build bike handling skills in a safe environment, away from traffic.
Pump tracks are visually similar to BMX tracks but usually smaller in scale and suitable for parks.
64 Trust gives families chance to get closer with new ‘cuddle bed’ for Claire House
As part of their generous £1million donation, the 64 Trust has bought Claire House Children’s hospice a ‘cuddle bed’, that allows families to be together at some of the most difficult times of their lives.
The cuddle bed is one of the first purchases made with funds from the Trust, that will be spent on providing new equipment, vital medical care and complementary therapies, as well as improving the charity’s site in West Derby Liverpool.
Lesley Fellows, nurse consultant at Claire House said, “We only get one chance to make a difference to seriously ill children and their families. We are so grateful to the 64 Trust for this new piece of equipment. It’s been on our wish list for ages but we simply couldn’t afford it.
Major change to local elections in Wirral
Wirral Council will move to whole council elections from May 2023.
The move to whole council elections will mean that from next year the council elections will be held once every four years, rather than currently being held in three out of every four years. The change comes after councillors passed a resolution to change to whole council elections.
Currently, in three of every four years, one third of the authority’s 66 councillors go to the polls, with a fallow year every fours years when no election takes place.
Hoylake Vision holds fresh round of consultation
Community forum Hoylake Vision is again inviting residents and businesses in Hoylake to have their say in helping to shape the town’s places and spaces in the future.
Working with Liverpool-based public engagement experts PLACED, the group is keen to discover more opinions and thoughts on how the town’s key public assets should feel and function, the types of activities, services and spaces on offer, and how they should adapt in future.
Following an earlier consultation round in 2020, the forum has re-opened an online community engagement website, and is inviting the community to bring forward more ideas which will inform an update to the Hoylake Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP). The website can be accessed at
www.placed-engagement.org.uk/hoylake 
Voters urged to register in time for May 2022 elections
On Thursday 5 May, residents in Wirral will go to the polls to have their say on who represents them at local council elections.
To vote, residents must be on the electoral register. With the deadline to register to vote fast approaching, Wirral Council is urging people who have not registered at their current address to make sure they are registered in time.
The deadline to register to vote is midnight on Thursday 14 April. It takes just five minutes to apply online at gov.uk/register-to-vote
Wirral Metro Swimming Club success at Liverpool National Meet 2022
Wirral Metro Swimming Club is a friendly, competitive performance-based, and academy swimming club based at Europa Pools, Birkenhead. It is Wirral’s only performance-based swimming club.
It has a proven, successful swim pathway programme accredited by Wirral Borough Council and Swim England with 90% of their swimmers qualifying for Regional Championships and a massive 20% qualifying for national events.
At the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021 18% of the swimmers in the British Swim Team swam at Wirral Metro as part of this pathway.
Police ‘keen to speak’ to three witnesses in area before Parkgate fire
Detectives investigating a large fire on marshland in Neston are continuing to appeal for information from members of the public.
Almost a week since the fire occurred, at around 6.20pm on Saturday 19 March in Parkgate, officers are keen to speak to witnesses who were in the area at the time.
It is believed a woman was walking her black dog shortly before the fire took place and spoke to a group of teenagers.
Six points and £1,000 fine for mobile phone use while driving
From 25 March 2022, motorists are breaking the law if they use a handheld mobile phone behind the wheel for any use, including to take photos or videos, scroll through playlists or play games – as the government closes a loophole previously exploited by dangerous drivers to escape conviction.
Anyone caught using their handheld device while driving could face a fine of up to £1,000 as well as 6 points on their licence or a full driving ban.
The government’s award-winning THINK! team is also launching an £800,000 awareness campaign to remind drivers not to use a handheld phone at the wheel and of the penalties if choosing to ignore this new law.
What’s On? Guide
Visit our “What’s On?” guide for Wirral and the surrounding areas in the coming weeks.
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