BirkenEd’s Place – w/c 28th November
4th December 2022
It has been another busy week of engagement activities and events at BirkenEd’s Place. What has really delighted our team is the enormous passion that local people have for Birkenhead, and it has been a pleasure to listen to everyone’s stories and experiences of the town’s past and present.
In our second week, we have continued to deliver our engagement for Dock Branch Park and Neighbourhood, sharing with the public the design team’s exciting proposals for the former Dock Branch Railway line in Birkenhead. The design team for Dock Branch includes Maccreanor Lavington, Civic Engineers, Expedition, Make, Authentic Futures and Open. We thank the team for their collaboration and support with the Dock Branch engagement at BirkenEd’s Place. Marking the end of our Wirral Waterfront and Surrounds engagement in BirkenEd’s Place, we also hosted a walking tour of the site led by Tom Roberts of Mott Macdonald who is on the project’s design team. Tom took a group of people to the three main areas of the project which are Woodside, Hamilton Station and Square, and Argyle Street, stopping to discuss the project and design ideas along the way. We were happy to assist in the discussion afterwards and heard some great feedback when everyone came back to BirkenEd’s Place for some tea and cake!
This week also saw some new content on display – plans for Grange Road, Charing Cross, and Grange Road West. On Wednesday and Thursday, representatives from Mott Macdonald were at the space to give information on the proposed highway and public realm improvements for these areas and to hear feedback from our visitors. The improvements to Grange Road, Charing Cross and Grange Road West will provide a more attractive place for people to shop, live, visit or work and will support the regeneration of the town centre, providing a better connected and more sustainable experience for all who use this area. We also have a new activity in the space this week in which we are asking the public to vote for the different road and street features they would like to see in Birkenhead and share opinions. On the weekend, we held further children and family craft activities (pictured above). Those who participated created lots of fantastic drawings of the exciting public spaces they would like to see in Birkenhead in the future.
We now have our Christmas decorations up and are looking forward to next week’s Dock Branch walking tours which will be led by Cathy Palmer, Head of Regeneration at Wirral Council. We anticipate that it will be another valuable and busy week of engagement! Thank you to all the ambassadors and volunteers who have kindly offered their time and support to us this week – Tom Roberts, Elizabeth Bundred-Woodward, Orla Doherty, Charlotte Osbourne, Steve Alexandra, Damian Garner, Hannah Oates, Libby Saunders, Lesley West, Matina Vrettou, and Min Yang.