David Parr tells Liverpool City Region Combined Authority about how Mersey Gateway Bridge will cost under £600 million

David Parr tells Liverpool City Region Combined Authority about how Mersey Gateway Bridge will cost under £600 million

David Parr tells Liverpool City Region Combined Authority about how Mersey Gateway Bridge will cost under £600 million

                                                                                                          

Updated: 11:25 24/11/14 Declaration of interest: In February 1997 the author of this piece was an employee of John Moores University for a week on work experience.

The papers for last Friday morning’s public meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority can be found on Knowsley Council’s website.

If you wish to watch what happened at the meeting you can do so below filmed by myself. If you want to watch me filming the meeting you can do so thanks to Knowsley Council. Also filming was somebody from Liverpool John Moores University Journalism. I think three people filming the same meeting is a record so far (considering that before August 2014 all requests to film Liverpool City Region Combined Authority meetings were refused).

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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority public meeting 21st November 2014

However, what actually happened? A good chunk of the meeting (around half) was a twenty-five minutes presentation (followed by questions and answers) by Halton Borough Council’s Chief Executive David Parr (pictured below) on the Mersey Gateway bridge across the River Mersey being built in Halton near to the Silver Jubilee Bridge (or Runcorn Bridge).

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st November 2014 L to R David Parr Chief Executive Halton Council Angela Sanderson Monitoring Officer Jim Fogarty Treasurer Cllr Phil Davies Chair Wirral Council
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st November 2014 L to R David Parr Chief Executive Halton Council Angela Sanderson Monitoring Officer Jim Fogarty Treasurer Cllr Phil Davies Chair Wirral Council

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st November 2014 item 5 Mersey Gateway Progress Update L to R David Parr Chief Executive Halton Council Angela Sanderson Monitoring Officer Jim Fogarty Treasurer Cllr Phil Davies Chair Wirral Council

Agreement was also reached to amend the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s constitution. Last month on the 15th October 2014 West Lancashire Council decided to join the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority as an Associate Member.

However to join, first the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority had to amend its constitution. Now that’s been done, a memorandum of understanding will be sent to West Lancashire Council which will need to be signed by them. However it seems likely that by the time the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority next meets that there will be someone there representing West Lancashire Council.

The area covered by West Lancashire has a population of 111,314 (2013 estimate), which is about a third of the Wirral. Its current political composition is 26 Labour councillors and 27 Conservative councillors. It was (until recently) evenly split at 27:27 but there is now (at the time of writing) a by-election going on in Skelmersdale North due to the recent death of a Labour councillor. The results of the by-election will be known by December 12th 2014.

The rest of the meeting was largely routine. However I welcome both hearing the result of the Skelmersdale North by-election and seeing who West Lancashire Council send to the next public meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. Pictures of its Leader and Deputy Leader can be viewed on this blog which covers the West Lancashire area.

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Merseytravel discuss the Open Golf & free trips over the Silver Jubilee & Mersey Gateway bridges for Halton people

Merseytravel discuss the Open Golf & free trips over the Silver Jubilee & Mersey Gateway bridges for Halton people

Merseytravel discuss the Open Golf & free trips over the Silver Jubilee & Mersey Gateway bridges for Halton people

                         

Outside Merseytravel’s headquarters, the (usually busy) main road was closed to traffic and crowds gathered.

Crowds gathered outside Merseytravel headquarters
Crowds outside Merseytravel headquarters

Just across the road from Merseytravel’s headquarters, souvenir programme sellers were selling “official souvenir programmes” for £5 each.


Souvenir programme sellers outside Merseytravel headquarters (25th July 2014)

The world’s media had descended on Liverpool for an event referred to as the “Giants”. However this is not about the giants outside, but instead the giants of Merseyside politics inside Merseytravel’s headquarters that met on Friday afternoon.

Merseytravel meeting of the 25th July 2014
Merseytravel meeting (25th July) Right Cllr Les Rowlands, centre background Cllr Steve Foulkes and Cllr Ron Abbey

If you wish you can read the agenda and reports for this meeting on Merseytravel’s website. Prior to the meeting starting, councillors had a one and a half hour “workshop” followed by a short break.

The Chair (Cllr Liam Robinson) thanked people for attending and apologies were given for Councillor Friel and Cllr Fulham. No declarations of interest were made and the minutes of the AGM were agreed.

Cllr Liam Robinson said, “Steve you just want to make a point?”. Cllr Steve Foulkes replied, “Chair, I don’t know where else on the agenda it would fit, other than possibly the minutes but I think speaking on behalf of all the Wirral Members [councillors] and anyone who’s involved in the Open Golf Championship recently on the Wirral.

I think it needs to be recorded somewhere that the coordinated transport approach from obviously Merseyrail, from Merseytravel, from Stagecoach and all of the people involved in it. Particularly given that we did have some inclement weather and we had a joint you known tee off time when lots of people arrived and left all at once. I think you know, given the circumstances around that I think we need to be recording our thanks as a committee to everyone involved in the organisation and particularly our own staff who were part of the big band structure of the event.

So on behalf of you know people, on behalf of groups that unfortunately I had to attend the golf on most days. *laughter and mock groans of sympathy from other councillors* Unfortunately it was actually you know and I spent lots of my time talking to ordinary people who were getting to and from it, they were highly complimentary about the organisation and there were no issues about performance. I’d like then just record somewhere our thanks to those involved in that event and I’m sure you know subsequent to today’s events as well, someone else will move that, but that’s from the Wirral point of view if that’s ok Chair?”

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair) replied, “Yeah, that’s excellent. Thanks very much Steve, I think we all sort of warmly applaud that accordingly. OK, item 4, Tony?”

Skipping ahead to what councillors said at the end of the meeting about the Mersey Gateway Bridge project in Halton.

Cllr Liam Robinson (Chair) said, “John, you just indicated?” Cllr John Stockton (Halton) said, “I’m sorry Chair but there’s been some important information that colleagues may be interested in that we’ve just received, myself and [Cllr] Harry [Howard].

We had a visit this afternoon colleagues from the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to Halton. He’s announced that the government’s going to put forward the money to ensure that all Halton residents will not have to pay for any journeys across both the Silver Jubilee Bridge and the new Mersey Gateway. *groans from some and some heckling of “for goodness sake” from one councillor*

OK? *laughter from some councillors at the heckling* So I hope you might be interested in that. *laughter and more heckling including “Will Wirral try?”* Unknown councillor “I think there must be a General Election on”. *laughter*

The Chair Cllr Liam Robinson replied, “You’d never know would you [Cllr] Harry [Howard]? *laughter* OK, well with all those bits of news if I can thank everybody for attending today and wish everybody a happy weekend with the Giants if you’re coming across them at all.”

Continues at Cllr McGlashan “before you even get out of the airport you’ve got to change money to get a pound to put the bloody..”.

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