• Matthew Crook Senior Conservation Officer

The Chair introduced Matthew Crook, Senior Conservation Officer to the forum to give a presentation.

Matthew’s presentation gave an update on conservation areas in Wirral specifically Oxton conservation area. Key headlines of the presentation included:

There has been an experiment by the council to work with the Oxton Society to see how residents can become more involved with their area and how Oxton can be preserved particularly in preventing the demolition of properties.

There needs to be more planning regulations on minor planning textures for example boundary and sandstone walls as part of the design guide to ensure modern fittings are in keeping with the area.

A conservation area management plan will be drafted by the Local Authority and will be updated to include modern technology; this will be updated every 5 years.

The public had the following questions:

Member of the public: I am very confused at the council’s reasons for the partnership with the Oxton Society as they seem to change. Why has Oxton been singled out? The members of the Oxton Society have had to pay £2,500 where no other area has!

Matthew Crook: Oxton is just the first of several local resources to be used; this is due to the fact that Oxton has previous reports and research conducted in the area to help this process.

Cllr Holbrook: Conservation areas should be real places where people live rather than boundary areas so that people feel a connection to the area and can sustain and support their areas.

Member of public (2 questions)

1. If this conservation area is subject to regulation how have workmen installed new street lamps in Fairview Road which are extremely modern and not in keeping with the Victorian style of the road. Who decided that these were for this area and how is it done?

2. At the Oxton Society AGM the extension of the conservation area was discussed in this document (document held up), this document was supposed to be available but no residents got a copy of them. The library also didn’t have a copy of it. How easy is it to put copies in local community centres? Consult the people, not the people in Oxton Society!

Cllr Williams: Consultation will be done

Mark Smith: The process for the installation of street lamps is based on a number of things. Wirral has a large lighting stock and it uses the latest state of the art equipment, which are efficient in terms of energy usage and maintenance costs. I am happy to look at the Fairview Rd decision but we have to bear in mind that the types of street lamps that are put in now must be available in the future or maintenance issues can be created.

Member of the public: If we expect residents to take responsibility for their properties the council should invest in the right materials for the area.

Cllr Kelly: Oxton residents continually bring up traffic issues to me and this forum, how does the traffic management study relate to the conservation appraisal?

Matthew Crook: This is something which is being looked into, an initial meeting has been held but an update can be brought back to the forum once progress has been made.

  Minute decision:

i.  Matthew Crook be thanked for his presentation

ii.  Mark Smith to update and report back to the forum regarding Council’s position statement for conservation areas.