Red flags, ‘spaghetti’, masterplan obsessions: Review explores Wirral’s regen failures
Led by ex-Homes England executive director Michael Palin, an independent analysis of the Merseyside council’s dysfunctional approach to regeneration plots out clear ways for the local authority to move forward after a testy few years.
Plagued with a churn of senior leadership exits, inadequate project management processes, and spiralling costs, Wirral Council’s regeneration programme has failed to deliver on its ambitions to revitalise Left Bank and Birkenhead town centre.
This led Leader Cllr Paula Basnett to commission an independent review in July from Palin’s consultancy, Aughton Lane.
“I called for this review to ensure we have a clear-eyed and independent assessment of Wirral’s regeneration programme, to understand what has gone wrong, what has worked, and what must now change,” Basnett told Place North West.
“As councillors, we have a collective responsibility to make sure that public money is used wisely to deliver real, lasting benefits for our residents. There has been growing concern that this has not always been the case, this review was the right and transparent step to get to the truth.
“The regeneration review will be published with the committee papers shortly, reaffirming our commitment to openness, accountability, and learning from the past so we can move forward with confidence and deliver the regeneration Wirral deserves.”
Place North West has acquired an early copy of this 38-page report, which, though uncompromising in how it evaluates the council’s failings, maintains that the local authority can come back from this provided it embraces a unified approach and makes a series of seismic changes.
“At a macro-level there has been some successful delivery on which future delivery can build; that the wealth of material produced to date does include content that is useful for the future; and that there are ideas from officers and members about how things can be done better,” the report states.
The spaghetti effect
Clarity in purpose, vision, and structure are chief among the needs catalogued by the Aughton Lane report.
That clarity needs to be coupled with practicality – what is actually achievable? That means having hard conversations about finance. Projects need to be costed properly from the outset, with maintenance costs also factored in.
When problems arise – and the report notes that they always do – there needs to be a clear sense of who to go to and what to do. Problems cannot be pushed down the road with the hopes of one day finding the money. They also cannot be answered by filing more robust reports on the matter, as has been the case at Wirral Council.
“The [current] processes can be described as ‘spaghetti’ – it is not clear who or where decisions are made,” the report states. “However, instead of stepping back and making them clear, the trend seems to be to iterate the problem and add new stages, new layers of complication, and a greater burden of producing information. The council needs to avoid doing this again.”
The report said there were many “red flags” that the regeneration programme was broken, but these were wilfully ignored.
“There has been failure of the most senior executive leadership when it comes to regeneration at the council, which has had a detrimental effect on the reputation of the council as a whole,” the report states.
It goes on to add: “The lack of an effective operating model for regeneration, failures with specific projects, and an unwillingness to professionally deal with difficult trade-off conversations, all demonstrate a failure to properly lead and manage the regeneration approach.”
The review also advocates for a dose of realism, bluntly stating: “The council simply cannot afford the level of ambition it promotes and must make difficult decisions about both strategic and operational priorities.”
To help this, the report says that the council needs to establish new processes for project and programme management, ones that prioritise efficiency, transparency, and accountability. It recommends that Wirral look to other local authorities that have led successful regeneration programmes and, if possible, recreate those systems in the borough.
What is more, the report pushes Wirral to establish a strategic partnership group with Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, Homes England, and an experienced regeneration professional from the private sector. This group should meet over the six months to develop governance arrangements for the regeneration of Left Bank, including the possibility of creating a dedicated arms-length delivery vehicle for the matter.
The problem with plans
Aughton Lane is clear in the review: the era of the masterplan is over. Wirral Council has simply too many masterplans and lacks the capacity to deliver them all.
For perspective, the local authority published four masterplans for Left Bank and three in Birkenhead last year.
The review states: “The obsession with producing masterplans (at considerable cost) underpins the local plan, but not having costed delivery strategies, continued to raise expectations, even though the financial reality was that those plans were unachievable with the resources available”.
Later it adds: “A plan on paper, without the money to deliver it, is not a deliverable plan.
“The expectations of members, and the public, have been raised to an unrealistic level.”
The review goes on to recommend a ban on new masterplans, instead urging the council to put its efforts on crafting delivery plans for a prioritised set of regeneration areas.
Part of the issue is the local plan itself, which was adopted this year and is already out-of-date, given changes in government policy. The local plan cost £7m to produce, according to the Aughton Lane review. This, the consultant states, is “an abnormally high cost and particularly the case in a council with such obvious funding challenges”.
The council also needs to understand that the local plan is not about delivery, instead its focus is on land allocation.
“The plan has been unrealistically seen as a holy-grail solution to some difficult trade-offs the council must (politically) face,” the report states.
- Hear from Wirral Council Leader Cllr Paula Basnett at Place’s Liverpool City Region Development Update. Book your ticket.
The quest for partners
Private capital will go a long way to delivering the council’s regeneration ambitions, but it must properly understand what public-private partnerships look like in practice, according to the review. This means building in flexibility and trusting private sector partners to develop and deliver projects rather than dictating their actions.
Still, it may be some time before the council has a chance to show a new attitude towards public-private partnerships.
“Unfortunately, the starting point for engaging the private sector is not good,” the report states.
“The weakness of the longer-term approach to regeneration combined with recent failings and, most damagingly, the political ‘noise’ associated with regeneration and the council actively discourages private sector interest. This will take time to change and the council need to prove itself more capable than it has been.”
The report also advises the council to look to registered providers and partner with them on regeneration projects.
Moving on
It is time for the council to dust itself off and get back to work on regeneration. The review provides an outline of activity for the next year.
Within three months, it wants the council to produce a recovery plan for the Birkenhead Town Centre projects. Wirral should also develop a single report looking at all of the money it has accumulated from successful bids for regeneration, mapping out what is being spent where.
Thinking long-term, the council should also publish an affordable housing strategy, establish the strategic partnership group with Homes England and the combined authority, and do research into what has made regeneration projects elsewhere in the country successful.
By the end of next summer, Wirral is encouraged to have a decision on pursuing a corporate model for capital programme management. It needs to agree a single vision for regeneration approach, backed up by a sequenced delivery plan.
Before the end of next year, a new operating model for the regeneration programme should be established.
Wirral Council will review the Aughton Lane report in the coming weeks.
Merseyside really does produce some abysmal politicians. Maybe someone from Manchester can run the whole North West.
By Lee
It was all looking so good 3/4 years ago what the heck happened?
By Inspector Lewis
Report encouraging better relationship with Liverpool combined authority sounds good until you realise Steve Rotheram is involved. Maybe he can ask his boss Andy Burnham for some advice. Don’t have much hope to be honest.
By Peter Kenny
The place was a vipers nest. The opportunities in Birkenhead and wider are significant and they had given themselves a real platform for growth. The politicians didn’t know their port from their starboard though and the executive team were frail, arrogant and average at best. Their needs to be a review of the CEX/s151 and MO arrangements over the last 3 years. Legal powers are there to preserve the integrity of the constition, not manage reputations with terrible attempts at PR and blockage of information.
By The Cole Man
Wirral has some wonderful core assets, sadly these are faded. Why is Hamilton Sqaure not given life and left to drift. There’s too much focus on stopping progress across Wirral rather than lifting it up.
By TJL
A truly hopeless council
By Anonymous
A big issue that seems to go unmentioned is Wirral’s fractious politics, which leads to stasis. NOC, with four parties sharing committee chair positions – a recipe for buck-passing. Fair play to Paula Basnett, whose dynamism is offering a modicum of proper leadership. But it ain’t getting any easier: Reform are waiting in the wings to bring another political voice to the table, come the next elections in 2027.
By Birket Boy
You have to look at some of the developer and consultancy community here too.
The 150k of new offices in Birkenhead with a council wrapper for 35 years that are largely unlet…..When there has been no speculative new build offices in Liverpool, Sheffield etc then scale of what was delivered in Birkenhead is absolute madness. Of course a developer will say it makes sense to build if they profit regardless of outcome.
By Concerned
Sounds like a complete lack of talent and skill at senior officer and councillor levels.
By Anonymous
Don’t forget the £13m overspend on new benches and plants on Grange Road
By Mr Whippy
There is no reason to refer to this” Left Bank” thing. Its a stupid name which has nothing to do with Wirral’s past or present.
Councillors and wacky focus groups love all this nonsense.
By Tina Batey
“If you have a town centre problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them….maybe you can hire The Degeneration Team.”
I ain’t building no market, fool.
I love it when I mess a masterplan
**cue the music
By Howling Mad Paul
Everyone from Wirral needs to read this shocking report to read the facts about what’s happened is truly an eye opener. Wow 🙏
By AR
So many open goals on the Birkenhead side of the Mersey:
We need a new, basic, pier at New Brighton to bring the ferry back, the Woodside ferry area should be a buzzing residential neighbourhood with mid-rise apartments and cafes, the Woodside ferry has been out of action for over 2 years we need it back, there should be a tramlink between Woodside and Seacombe the bones of which are already there and would be used by residents and visitors.
Just a few things that would prove beneficial for that part of the Wirral.
By Anonymous
This is not Palins bag, why was he chosen for this? His area is policy. What does he know about the NPPF and Planning? Always be wary of someone out of work parading as a consultant. He will be doing the Recovery Plan next.
By Dobbie
What a shambles. Millions wasted on purchasing overpriced bjildings. Councillors doing very nicely thank you. Vote them all out.
By Dave collins