I don't have much time for this "Bootle leaching off Southport" thing. I don't see much evidence of this when I go to Bootle. I also think there's a bit of a disconnect with certain Southport residents over how wealthy the town supposedly is, or even was pre-Sefton. In fact, you betray yourself slightly by suggesting the age profile of the town is why it's unparished, which is essentially implying that it has a weak tax base. The real reason Southport is unparished is because all towns of that size tend to be unparished, including Bootle. A town council for Southport would actually be a good start though.
As for Bootle, it has always been a separate town from Liverpool. If I had my way with my proposed reforms, it would have the option to be added to Liverpool or reconstitute its own municipal borough. Also, I wouldn't say either Knowsley or Liverpool are particularly well run. The former has some of the worst education attainment in the country and the latter is currently in special measures due to it reeking of corruption and nepotism, largely due to the previous mayor and his dealings with Derek Hatton - essentially, a bad episode of Brookside.
Warrington may be "independent" from other places, but itself is actually consisted of other smaller places such as Lymm. Also, it still shares some things with Cheshire, such as policing. In a scenario where we actually devolve significant powers to counties, Warrington simply isn't going to be on its own. Nor will Southport.
The lack of benefit to Bootle from this “leaching” is what Southport residents are most disgusted with. Not only does Southport not get a penny of its own money spent on it, but Sefton’s decisions on where to spend it in Bootle have been so poor that they have been of no benefit to Bootle and downright damaging to Southport. For example Sefton made the decision to spend millions of pounds of Southport’s money on the purchase of the Bootle ‘strand’ shopping centre, a facility not usable by Southport residents who make up the majority of the population of the Metropolitan Borough and which is world famous as the site of one of the most horrific murders of all time, at many times it’s face value and then immediately wiped this value off it and it continues to lose millions of pounds of Southport’s money a year, a real funding black hole for Sefton, all while most of the shops on Southport’s world famous boulevard of Lord Street which inspired the construction Champs-Elysee itself, stand empty, with the few that are open being either ‘foreign’ or charity shops of little value to the town.
If a Borough of Southport had its own council, the true wealth of its residents would be evident in the amount of council tax revenue it received and exactly this amount of money would be available to spend in Southport. If Bootle didn’t always assume it will always have Southport as a cash cow to fill the funding black hole it’s decision making has created, perhaps it would be able to devise a more sustainable way to manage its finances and provide some real benefit to Bootle. I recall seeing a sign in the window of an empty shop in Ormskirk recently which read “West Lancashire invites new ventures to these premises at a discounted rate enquire on 01695 xxxxxx…” and the background featured some nice images of Ormskirk town centre. By comparison, empty shops in Southport with their broken/boarded up windows often have signs above themsimply state “TO LET absentee landlord +965 1800 xxx” with no attempt by the council to improve the situation. In fact Sefton have many times voted against spending money on any initiative to regenerate Lord Street, as well as selling off what shops in Southport it inherited from the Southport Corporation, setting business rates so high as to be prohibitively expensive for any business wishing to operate in Southport and making all parking in Southport pay and display, making it prohibitively expensive for anyone to visit the non-existent shops either. Where shops in the Bootle ‘strand’ shopping centre are empty, images taken in the 1960s are plastered all over them with the message “Celebrating 50 glorious years of the strand!” but that’s just ignoring the problem of empty shops and nothing to celebrate if you ask me.
When I said that Southport is unparished because of its age, I meant how long it has existed as a town, because it’s a comparatively new town, only existing since the Victorian era, it was not established as a civil parish in the same way as most older settlements, not the age profile of its current residents, even the oldest of whom had not been born at the time of Southport gaining the status of County Borough in 1867. Bootle may not be parished, but everywhere else in Sefton is, as are most places in West Lancashire. The reason Southport does not want a ‘town’ council, which is just an alternate name for a parish council, is because it would only mean an even higher rate of council tax while it would remain part of Sefton, not solving any of the problems that Sefton’s existence and ineffective method of governance causes. Southport has no facilities for its residents and any routine visit to a council office requires an unpleasant trip to Bootle, where you will be expected to provide an L post code and 0151 phone number, the worst insult imaginable to a Sandgrounder who’s 01704 area code and PR post code are part of their local identity.
Liverpool and Knowsley are vastly better run than Sefton. All I can say is that all of the worst people I or anyone in my family have ever had the misfortune to encounter came from the Sefton education department and that the “leached” money I was referring to is lost to corruption, on the part of people from the education department in particular. Joe Anderson is a saint compared to any of them.
The level of “independence” exhibited by the Unitary Authority of Warrington is exactly what is needed for Southport and would come with such benefits as a municipal bus operator. I’m sure Lymm hasn’t been damaged in the slightest by being part of Warrington. A separate Warrington police force or health service would simply be too small. Also criminals would simply be able to escape to the rest of Cheshire.
I always felt that Merseyside should have included Widnes, Runcorn and maybe Warrington but not Southport. As the area north of Crosby becomes rural, and is not covered by Liverpool zone Saveaways, Crosby is a more logical northern boundary for Merseyside.
Similarly, I feel that Redditch and Cannock would be more logically included in West Midlands than Coventry.
Crosby is the northernmost extent of both the continuous conurbation of Liverpool and the Mersey estuary, so it is the only logical place for Merseyside to end. Formby and Southport are simply not part of either and are tacked on. Warrington can claim to be on the Mersey, which it is, but does not wish to be part of Merseyside.
Personally, I think it was the exclusion of Ormskirk & Skelmersdale that was more odd. It's their omission that makes Southport look tacked on. I agree about Widnes, Runcorn & Warrington. I'd probably say Ellesmere Port & Neston too. Most of these areas were initially intended to be included.
If Ormskirk was included it would make more sense for Southport to be as most of its hinterland would be in Merseyside. Ellesmere Port and Runcorn make more sense though.
The problem with expanding Merseyside is that you don’t have to go far before you reach somewhere thats indisputably not part of Merseyside. If you were to put the whole Borough of West Lancashire in Merseyside, you’d have Hesketh Bank and Tarleton which are effectively part of Preston. Go too far the other way and you’ve absorbed the County Town of Cheshire, another city in its own right and part of North Wales!
There are many areas of our metropolitan areas that I think shouldn’t be included. Coventry as you site, is an example. I wouldn’t include the town of Wigan in Greater Manchester, but I would include the eastern side of the borough of Wigan, as I would include Wilmslow and Poynton. Watford should be in Greater London.
What would you do with Alderley Edge, which is the end of the continuous conurbation of Manchester in the Crewe direction? Would it be on its own in Cheshire or would it be part of Greater Manchester with adjoining Wilmslow?
Likewise would you put the often ignored small town of Leigh in Merseyside or Lancashire with Wigan or in Greater Manchester?
Wigan does seem quite detached from the rest of Greater Manchester. If anything, it is nearer Liverpool than Manchester.
I think having the Underground and Overground serve Watford, together with the phrase "north of Watford" makes Watford look like the northernmost point in London. That said, I am used to feeling I've reached London when my Avanti train passes Harrow & Wealdstone.
The Manchester continuous conurbation goes as far as Glossop, Marple, Hazel Grove, Poynton, Alderley Edge, Irlam, Lostock, Bromley Cross, Ramsbottom, Littleborough, Shaw and Stalybridge, but some are not in Greater Manchester and other places beyond are. If anything I would include a bit more of Cheshire and a bit less of Lancashire. The whole Airport runway should be in Greater Manchester.
There is an ongoing argument as to whether “North of Watford” refers to the Watford where Watford Junction is served by the London Overground, or Watford gap, which apparently is somewhere else entirely. Obviously both are part of London in reality, but in the same way as Bootle is just part of Liverpool, the only people who say otherwise are the people who live there. There are no grounds for Watford not to be included in London given that it is part of the continuous conurbation. Fortunately, the definition of London as everything within the M25 does not exclude Watford.
Wigan town centre is just a bit closer to Manchester city centre, but not by much. Crucially, the town is loser to the bulk of the Greater Manchester conurbation than the Merseyside conurbation, however that is as a result of the GM urban area being much larger than the Merseyside urban area.
Manchester being inland has towns surrounding it on all sides, unlike Liverpool being on the coast. If it wasn’t for the Pennines, “Manchester” would probably go all the way into Yorkshire. Measured in a straight line, Bootle Town Hall to Southport Town Hall is 14 miles, but Southport Town Hall to Preston County Hall is 14.3 miles. Is it right for places to be tied together like this when other very different places are only negligibly further away in a different direction?
