Welcome To Wirral

Working with Tic Consultants an organisation involved in regeneration in the region, we identified three groups that we felt represented a cross section of the community.

A group from Clifford Grange, a sheltered housing scheme for the elderly situated on Old Chester Road participated in a series of workshops with local artists to produce art work themed on the history of Tranmere. These workshops involved residents sharing stories and old photographs of the area as well as watching video footage of pre and post War Tranmere to refresh memories and generate debate. This was followed by residents actually getting involved in producing the artwork.

The second group was a community lunch group who meet every Tuesday and Thursday for “Soup and Sandwich” sessions in Prospect House, Church Road Tranmere. This group consisted of both men and women of a broad age range from early twenties to pensioners. Again as before the group participated with an artist in discussion and general chat about the area and how current regeneration programmes had made an impact before producing with the artist three “community” themed pieces of art work.

The final workshops were held in spring 2005 with a local youth group in the Tranmere area. These workshops had a similar format to the previous workshops but this time artwork was produced on visions of how they would like to see Tranmere regenerated in the future.

Not only has this project allowed us the opportunity to pro-actively market HMRI and regeneration in the area. It has enabled us to take part in community engagement and talk to local residents about their feelings towards regeneration in the HMRI area and answer any questions they may have. It also gave residents a chance to contribute towards the aesthetic regeneration of their neighbourhood and create a sense of ownership and involvement with the HMR programme.

Phase two of Solid Futures will strongly focus on the process of involving local residents in reminiscence of their lives and their neighbourhoods, and will then encourage them to focus on the future of their neighbourhood. The project will start in September 2006 and finish at the end of December 2006. Throughout the four months of this project the artist will have engaged with a variety of people, empowered residents, assisted people living through change and captured the identity of Church Road.

For more information contact:

Craig Charles
HMRI Policy Officer
0151 691 8376
craigcharles@wirral.gov.uk