WRITING recently in the Guardian,'To plug the north south gap the only way is Manchester' (13.3.14), Simon Jenkins declares that Hebden Bridge did not "smash itself to pieces as much of Liverpool did".
I was struck by these words because the part of Merseyside, Crosby, I think of as home looks exactly like it's been, well, "smashed to pieces". So how have we done this to ourselves?
We never rioted. Crosby isn't Toxteth or Moss Side. And far from being Militant I don't think it had a Labour councillor through the years I grew up here in the 60s and 70s. The Social Democrats oveturned a 19,000 Tory majority in 1981.
And Crosby was living the Tory small business dream. On our road, St Lukes, there was a removals firm, a tyre specialist firm which then became a glazing company, a sweet shop, and a small firm producing lenses for spectacles. The last of these, the glazing firm, is about to close.
Moor Lane
In Crosby 'village', there used to be small shops, greengrocers, fishmongers, watch repairers, and a much loved bakery, Satterthwaites. Maybe we didn't eat enough cakes but, Simon, in voting for the self declared party for shopkeepers we thought we were doing the right thing.
A scaled down Satterthwaites has risen again some way away down Coronation Road with a new owner.
Crosby village is where Jenkins, however, is bang on the money. It looks like a bomb's hit it. Where Central Buildings once stood there's a crater and whitewashed-window storefronts dominate Moor Lane.
The owners of Central buildings, Maghull Development Holdings, received planning permision for a new mixed purpose building in 2006 and knocked them down with the retailers located there for decades scattering far and wide.
Nothing's happened since. Except during the recent gales one of the fences fell down and that has now been replaced with fencing better suited to windy conditions.
Why didn't it happen? The banking crisis of 2008 and property speculation, say locals, but they could be just deflecting blame.
Between 1998 and 2012 fifty per cent of the businesses here have changed not just ownership but also the nature of their business. With a dwindling 'footfall', reversing the 1995 pedestrianisation is being raised as a possible way forward.
But sometime one has to start talking about Sainsbury's and the most egregious example of the self-destructiveness of Liverpool and Crosby people in particular.
In November 2009 Sainsbury's published a plan to build a bigger superstore. Three times the size of the current unit and including a two storey and an additional four storey car park it would have dominated the village.
It was rejected by the majority locally and the plans ground to a halt. Having already purchased the shops on Moor Lane and other properties beyond to accomodate the new store, Sainsbury's now no longer had a use for them. With this uncertainty and with relatively high rents, no new shops have opened.
The local press are, however, reporting hopeful signs and once a month there is a night steet market. Nationally Sainsbury's policy now seems to be to extend a network of smaller in town supermarkets rather than hyperstores. Is it possible other towns could have been as self destructive as Crosby? This may explain why some of the residential properties purchased for demolition are now up for sale. Rents on the shops on Moor Lane have also been sharply reduced.
In a way that we've become wearily familiar with, local people are having the last violent, aggressive say - with knitting needles.
Last month local knitting artist Naomi "Rage" Lawrence coordinated a "yarn bombing" of Cooks Road roundabout and Moor Lane, as again can be seen in the picture above. Will we ever learn!?
*Nick Timmons is Crosby born and now lives in Berlin. He blogs at westeuropeaninberlin.wordpress.com
