News Roundup: 21st January, 2011

Here are  some of the latest items of news for Hoylake.

HSBC Branch Closure

Representatives for HSBC came up from London to meet concerned local residents at a public meeting at Melrose Hall on Thursday, 13th Jan to discuss the closure of the HSBC Hoylake branch. Despite a petition against the closure having approximately 1,200 signatures, HSBC have confirmed that they will close their Hoylake branch. However, other high street banks have expressed an interest in opening a branch somewhere in Hoylake – more news on this hopefully positive news in due course.

£100,000 to Spend

New funding is available for organisations wanting to help drive economic growth in New Brighton, West Kirby and Hoylake with applications now being accepted. A sum of £100,000 being available to fund projects in Hoylake and West Kirby. Further details are on the Council website and can be accessed via this link. This is a significant amount of funding – any ideas what would drive economic growth in Hoylake? The closing date for applications is Friday 25 February 2011. West Wirral projects will be evaluated by residents and Area Forum representatives at a “special” meeting scheduled for 7.00pm on 14 March at Melrose Hall.

Banners

The street lamp banners are now back along the top half of Market Street, having been installed earlier in the week. I presume that more robust fixings have been used this time – you may recall that the strong winds of early November blew all the banners down. Spring is on it’s way …we’ll soon find out!

I took this photo yesterday when Hoylake was enjoying a nice bright afternoon. It has been foggy at times this week, especially toward New Brighton and the River Mersey during the day. Does anyone know if the port authorities still make use of a fog horn?

What do you think of the street banners anyway? Have your say in the comments below.

Pavement Markings

I’m curious to find out what these markings on the pavement (pictured) in the area around Hoyle Road and Hoylake Cottage are?

Some of them seem to say BT and some others seem to use what I think is a symbol for water pipes.

I’m wondering if it’s something to do with improved broadband speeds in Hoylake? According to this page BT are scheduled to upgrade the Hoylake exchange by the end of March for something called 21st Century Network. If you know what they are there for please let me know.

Sailing School

Hoylake Sailing School has now moved back to it’s main office on Market Street after suffering a fire in May last year. Round-the-world yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man to circumnavigate the globe solo, is to officially re-open the premises on Monday, 24th Jan at 12.00pm.

Community Centre

Hoylake Community Centre has had it’s business plan submitted to Wirral Borough Council accepted and the centre will now be run by a charitable company named Hoylake Parade Ltd. A 99-year lease has been agreed on a pepper-corn rent and the transfer provides for funding to allow the full refurbishment of the roof, new drains and car park.

A lot of hard work by long term volunteers has secured the future of this substantial building so well done to them. Many local communities would no doubt be rather envious of such a facility on their own door step.

If you haven’t been to the Community Centre do pop-in to see the facilities on offer.

Police

Local Police Inspector Paul Vickers has moved (1oth Jan) to Birkenhead and swapped locations with Inspector Mick Blease who now has responsibility for Hoylake and West Kirby.

Cash For Gold

I gather the Cash for Gold store that was in the right end unit of The Row has closed today. What would you like to see as a shop at those premises? Many locals will recall that the shop was once the Grape Escape wine bar and next door was the Norwegian Wood sauna and massage parlour (cough!).

Library Use

Hoylake twitter user @hoylakebeach alerted me to a press article about locals in a village near Milton Keynes protesting against the proposed closure of their local library by organising a successful campaign (publicity stunt) to withdraw every book from the library. The story acts as a reminder that with all the austerity cuts happening up and down the country, local libraries could be facing closure in attempts to reduce council expenditure. One way to potentially stop this happening (again) in Hoylake is to make use of the library – it wouldn’t be at all surprising if one measurement of library use is the monitoring of book withdrawals.

Facebook

Many thanks to all you who have ‘liked’ the new HoylakeJunction page on facebook – there are lots of names that I haven’t seen before so more people are getting to hear about Hoylake and HoylakeJunction.com. Feel free to get your friends to like the page too!