Children from Grove Street Primary and Rock Ferry High School have worked together with local artist Paul Bearman to create an improved welcome to New Ferry.

Wirral Council has been working on proposals for improvements to New Ferry’s public realm and streetscene for several years. The recent improvement schemes have been funded by the Wirral Waterfront SRB6 initiative and are part of a wider £1million A41 Environmental Improvement Strategy.

The children worked together with artists to give their views of New Ferry, past and present. The ‘Welcome to New Ferry’ structures have been designed using the children’s ideas and other themes, including historic links between the trams and shipbuilding at Cammell Lairds, as well as modern New Ferry being the home of the Farmers Market and Butterfly Park.

Paul Bearman, the artist, was selected because of his experience of public art in regeneration and developing design proposals, particularly in local schools.

He said: “This was a very enjoyable project. The pupils were terrific to work with and thoroughly engaged in developing ideas which were used in the art work.”

His design has now been installed and the structures were officially launched by the Mayor on Wednesday 11th July.

Photo: Wirral’s Mayor Councillor Phil Gilchrist with Grove Street pupils Sam Waterstone and Ben Malone, who both participated in the Artist-in-Residence project, artist Paul Bearman, Grove Street Head Teacher Mrs Little, and Bromborough Councillor Alan Taylor.