Frank’s Blog

Following my campaign, Everton Football Club have announced that, beginning in this month’s pay packet, everybody employed by the club will receive at least a Living Wage for the work they do. Everton’s announcement is both timely and welcome, given that this week’s data from the Trades Union Congress shows almost one in four workers across the North West is paid less than the Living Wage – deemed to be the minimum hourly rate necessary to afford life’s…

We had a large and lively meeting on Friday regarding plans for the Rock Ferry High School site. We’ve agreed to meet again on March 13, but the unanimous decision of Friday’s meeting was that the grounds be kept as they are, with the woodland and open spaces conserved. It was likewise agreed that the school building should be demolished and that, on the school imprint, local residents would like the council to invite developers to build retirement homes. From the meeting too we…

Wirral Council has had to make £150 million worth of cuts imposed by the Coalition Government. The latest round of cuts to Wirral’s budget was rubberstamped on Tuesday. All of this added together means that the Coalition has given Wirral £228 less to spend on each local resident next year than in 2010. This is a colossal amount of money to lose. I know lots of my constituents have felt the sharp end of the Coalition’s scalpel. And yet councils in some of the wealthiest

Most of us wanted to keep the old Rock Ferry High School, and there was once a proposal from a University Technical College to keep it open. But a ‘helpful’ local authority official successfully applied to get the old house on its grounds listed, which made the sponsors withdraw. This was the shoddiest application English Heritage has ever received, and yet it was still granted. Nobody seems to know who the architects or craftsmen were. All that was offered up was with whose…