Wirral Coast on TV - Tonight - Wirral-Wikiwirral

Our Coast - BBC2 Friday 7th Jan 2020

To quote Culture Liverpool -

All aboard for BBC Two show #OurCoast tonight as this weeks episode features Adrian Chiles, Mehreen Baig and a team of experts explore the spectacular coastlines linked by the Irish Sea and you might even spot our very own Cruise Liverpool terminal in this weeks episode!

They filmed here in Liverpool in July with our fabulous Liverpool Film Office crew when we had the spectacular Cunard Queen Mary 2 with us - keep your eyes peeled for some familiar sights including Mersey Ferries, Sefton Council, Visit Wirral - tune in tonight at 8.00pm* and don't forget to tag us in on social media if you spot us! (images courtesy of BBC).

Note * The time on the BBC schedules says it is broadcast at 20:30. Lasts 1 hour. Repeated ta other times.
This is the first of four programmes. Next week they explore the Anglesey coast.

I watched it and enjoyed it; quite a varied tour of different aspects of the coast with some great aerial views. Docks, dereliction, squirrels, Hoylake lifeboat (hovercraft), luxury (QM2, a modern mansion) etc; an interesting selection. Looking forward to next week's episode which covers Anglesey.

It had a lot of good stuff about Birkenhead, but was marred for me by the perennial niggle of presenters thinking Birkenhead is part of Liverpool. They're not the first broadcasters who have proved sloppily incapable of making the distinction. Haven't they noticed the big river separating both places? Also, Adrian Chiles said some of great liners that plied the Atlantic were built in the Liverpool docks. I don't think so.

Ha, I missed the bit about ship-building! Oops. I think the Liverpool / Birkenhead thing is probably to do with the whole area being labelled now as the Liverpool City Region. Hmph. Whoever writes the scripts cannot have been familiar with the area and its history. I'd like to have seen something about Hilbre Island, too.

Watched it and enjoyed it despite the mistakes, so thank you Norton. As a child during the war I spent a lot of time around the Birkenhead docks as they were full of interesting things and saw the pumping station on the morning after it was bombed.

I saw most of the programme about Wirral. I found it really interesting and from a different perspective, even if some of the content might already have been known to locals .

Liverpool have been laying claim to Wirral since around 2002, when their Visit Liverpool Brochure had Wirral described as a
' Suburb of Liverpool' .

That really hacked me off .

It was 1855 when Parliament effectively gave Birkenhead Docks to Liverpool that everything went pear-shaped. From Hansard ....

Quote

There had been two Bills introduced, the Birkenhead Docks Bill and the Liverpool Docks Bill; the former of which involved works on the Birkenhead side of the river, at an expense of 1,500,000l.; and the latter Bill to enlarge the dock accommodation on the Liverpool side of the river, the expense of which: would be not less than 3,500,000l. It was evident that this immense extension on the Liverpool side was caused only by the jealousy which had been excited by the rising prosperity of Birkenhead. Under these circumstances, the Commitee took the unusual step of recommending the parties, instead of spending their money in a fruitless contest, to amalgamate the property on both sides of the river, and put the docks on the Birkenhead side and the Liverpool docks together under one public trust.

This counters the story that Birkenhead were in a financial crisis and that's why they sold the docks to Liverpool, firstly they didn't choose to sell them and secondly they had the money available to advance the docks. The docks were a huge money-maker, if we had been able to keep the docks the whole history of the Wirral from then on would have been different, especially now.