Birkenhead: heritage transport and active travel
Artist’s impression of The Transport Shed, Birkenhead © Wirral Council
Liam Kelly is a member of Birkenhead Town Deal Board, is Chief Executive of Make Community Interest Company (CIC), a social enterprise for culture and creativity in Liverpool, and is also Chair of Baltic Triangle CIC. His drive to create change in Birkenhead comes from a commitment to wanting to see a brighter future for his hometown.
“Wanting this change is about being from Birkenhead and growing up there. But it’s also about a genuine desire for positive change in an area that, socially, was at the forefront of many things,” says Liam.
Leading the way for public green spaces, Birkenhead Park opened in 1847 and is credited with being the world’s first publicly funded civic park, and inspiration for New York’s Central Park. As Birkenhead residents shared their views on the future direction of the Town it was clear that access to quality green spaces and the opportunity to engage in heritage and culture are still highly valued.
Imagining the town experience of the future
In 2020, Wirral Council engaged local communities to develop a 2040 vision for the Town and to draft the Birkenhead 2040 Framework, a spatial plan which has provided the foundation for the Birkenhead Town Deal. When members of Birkenhead’s resident, business and creative communities took part in developing the vision, they focused on what they wanted the Town to feel like, to live, work or relax there in 2040. Liam, who took part in the workshops reflects, “The ideas that fed into the vision came from what people desired the Birkenhead experience to be in 2040.”
This focus on the future experience of the Town, rather than a fixed set of interventions, led towards shared aspirations for the Town that are broad enough to include different perspectives. “It was pitched with the right level of detail to make it easier to think longer term. It would have been wrong to try to include every prescribed detail, action by action, to create a plan for 2040 and expect us to work our way there in a rigid fashion” says Liam.
Supporting healthier futures
Currently Birkenhead residents experience significant health inequalities and there are high levels of deprivation in the Town. Life expectancy for males in Birkenhead is the lowest in the Wirral at 72.8, which is nine years less than males can expect to live in other parts of the area.
Healthier lifestyles and the need for better access to culture and green spaces were recurring themes in developing the Birkenhead 2040 Framework, also picked up through engagement for the Town Deal.
“We were talking about regenerating and creating better health outcomes and life expectancies for the people that live or work in Birkenhead. That led us to the need for better access to green space which would enable and encourage active lifestyles such as cycling, walking and space to relax,” says Liam.
This ambition for the Town has led to the prioritisation of Town Deal projects that improve access to green spaces and the opportunity for local residents to engage with culture and heritage sites.
Heritage transport and active travel
The Transport Shed visitor centre, located within Dock Branch Park, responds to this need by creating a significant heritage attraction surrounded by green space, within an active travel corridor through the centre of Birkenhead. The Transport Shed is a purpose-built visitor centre that will house the National Museums Liverpool’s impressive transport collection. This flagship attraction is estimated to draw 150-200,000 visitors a year to the site.
“Dock Branch Park, with the Transport Shed at its heart, is an amazing project, which is an economic enabler with the potential to raise the land values of the area. It will also just create a really nice green place to be,” explains Liam.
A key Town Deal project for Birkenhead, the Transport Shed creates a unique cultural offer and will give local residents and visitors from further afield the opportunity to view and interact with important from the region's transport heritage, many of which have remained in storage until now. Cathy Palmer, Regeneration Delivery Lead at Wirral Council is optimistic about the ways in which the Transport Shed both recognises the importance of local transport heritage, while creating a focal point within Dock Branch Park encouraging new, active forms of travel.
“We hope to be able to showcase this nationally significant collection alongside the existing collection housed at the Wirral Transport Museum. We’d like to see many more visitors come over from Liverpool on the Ferry across the Mersey, making use of the soon to be enhanced connections down to the Waterfront, to tell the story of Birkenhead past and future,” says Cathy.
Breathing new life into Birkenhead
With investment from the Birkenhead Town Deal and other government-backed funding sources, the Town is moving closer to a new, ambitious vision for the future, to be realised through the Birkenhead 2040 Framework. With investment comes the opportunity to carve out new and essential green spaces within the Town to improve health and quality of life for its residents. This time taking inspiration from New York in the form of The High Line, Birkenhead’s new linear park is designed to bring wildlife, leisure and heritage to the tracks of a disused railway line that runs right through the centre of Birkenhead and will be home to The Transport Shed.
There has not been a local plan for Birkenhead since 1947. By bringing diverse communities on the journey, right from the outset, the council has generated a shared vision for Birkenhead in 2040 that has everyone excited about the future of their Town.
This story was written from conversations with Liam Kelly, Chief Executive of Make CIC, Chair of Baltic Triangle CIC and member of Birkenhead Town Deal Board; and Cathy Palmer, Regeneration Delivery Lead at Wirral Council.
Birkenhead is one of 101 places invited by the Government to develop Town Deal proposals to deliver long-term economic recovery, clean growth, jobs and prosperity as part of the £3.6 billion Towns Fund. Birkenhead has submitted a successful Town Investment Plan and secured a Town Deal of up to £25 million. Birkenhead is currently developing business cases to take forward their Town Deal proposals.