The Post

08/09/2025

Across the West, Christianity has long been in decline. Merseyside is no different: Protestant and Catholic church attendance has dropped and their institutional power waned. At least one academic has argued that the common Scouse identity emerged from two sectarian ones.

However, one ancient form of Christianity is doing fine. Orthodoxy was first brought to Liverpool 200 years ago by Greek refugees. Since then, Romanian and Russian Orthodox communities have sprung up on the Wirral. St Nicholas’s in Toxteth has seen an increase in attendance.

There has been a swell of interest in Orthodox Christianity in recent years, with mixed results. In the US, some have expressed concern about ‘Orthobros’, young men attracted to what they see as the church’s chauvinism. Is this phenomenon in evidence here, too?

Laurence Thompson travels to Wallasey and L8 to find out about Eastern Orthodoxy on Merseyside, and whether the revival of interest in faith may also have its pitfalls.

https://www.livpost.co.uk/christianity-is-in-decline-on-merseyside-some-are-looking-to-russia/

04/09/2025

In today's edition, our data reporter Daniel Timms has been looking into the dispersal of green spaces in Liverpool, and has discovered that less than half of all residents here have what is described as “good access” to parks and nature 🌱

The Post looks to neighbouring cities to find out how we can benefit from better access to nature

01/09/2025

We’re all shuffling in formation. A slow, silent procession circling a vast, gleaming central altar of P*P family saloons. A few rebels attempt to swim against the tide, but they are quickly absorbed back into the current.

It’s a warm and sunny summer afternoon. We are surrounded by untold riches. Silks from China, gems from Sri Lanka, Argentinian leather and French perfumes. Everyone is miserable.

This is in Cheshire Oaks, the Uncanny Valley of shopping malls. Thirty years ago, the Ellesmere Port outlet village opened with an almost quaint array of just 24 stores. Back in 1995, it was strictly a clearance bin strip mall. Today it’s morphed into a 400,000 square foot goliath complete with 165 shops, dozens of restaurants, roaring dinosaurs presiding over a crazy golf course, street food trucks and spinning fairground rides.

📖 read the full story on our website now.

01/09/2025

✍️ David Lloyd embarks on a perilous journey through Ellesmere Port’s blingiest shopping village

David Lloyd embarks on a perilous journey through Ellesmere Port’s blingiest shopping village

29/08/2025

Liverpool’s first new central railway station in decades is a major investment, but the price tag has raised eyebrows...

🚂 The Baltic station is costing £100m. Is it value for money?

Liverpool's first new central railway station in decades is a major investment, but the price tag has raised eyebrows

27/08/2025

As parents prepare for getting their kids into a decent school, The Post discovers who is hardest hit by the admissions process 🔍

Read the story on our website now.

27/08/2025

As parents prepare for getting their kids into a decent school, The Post discovers who is hardest hit by the admissions process 🔍

As parents prepare for getting their kids into a decent school, The Post discovers who is hardest hit by the admissions process

26/08/2025

When former asset management director Marcus Shaw became Wirral Council’s interim director of regeneration in 2024, he couldn’t have expected an easy ride. Indeed, recent history tells us there are few jobs, if any, as cursed as this one, few chalices quite so poisoned. In just three years four directors of regeneration have been seen off, each seemingly more unpopular than the last, as a council which stood on the precipice of a huge and exciting regeneration process has descended into in-fighting and ill-feeling.

Now, Wirral Council finds itself at a new precipice: that of financial collapse. In November last year, the council requested a £40m government bailout in order to keep it afloat.

Somehow, Shaw’s tenure appears to be going even worse than his predecessors. One opposition councillor, speaking to The Post anonymously, went as far as to suggest his appointment was an “act of vandalism” by the council.

Just weeks after Shaw was made a permanent fixture in the council — ascending from interim to fulltime director of regeneration in March this year — an inquiry was launched into the regeneration department, focusing on how so many projects had veered away from plans, costs spiralling. In a public statement, the council’s new leader, Paula Basnett, said she would not be “brushing anything under the carpet”.

Since then, Shaw has been absent from his role, with many speculating as to his return or removal from the ill-fated post.

🚨 Exclusive: How Wirral Council’s multi-million pound regeneration dream crashed

Read the full story on our website now 🔍

26/08/2025

🚨Exclusive: A Post investigation sees council insiders claim senior officials ‘put a bullet in the head’ of plans to improve the peninsula

A Post investigation sees council insiders claim senior officials ‘put a bullet in the head’ of plans to improve the peninsula

11/08/2025

‘I spend too much time on trifles’: a glimpse of Victorian Liverpool through the diary of a ‘serious’ woman

An era of sailing ships, grief and self denial 📚

An era of sailing ships, grief and self denial

06/08/2025

Last week, a social media post by local Conservative councillors warned that the King’s Gap Hotel in Hoylake would soon see its current occupants — mostly migrant families waiting for ‘leave to remain’ status — moved out to make way for single men.

This Home Office plan, since confirmed by Wirral Council, has resulted in protests, counter protests, and (to date) four arrests. Residents of Hoylake, an affluent town on Merseyside’s Dee-facing coast, will be hoping their home does not become a national story for all the wrong reasons.

To find out what’s going on at the King’s Gap, we sent Laurence Thompson to speak to both sides of the issue, and try to gauge how bad this already febrile situation could get.

Over the course of a protest, Laurence talks with concerned locals, far-right sympathisers, and antifascist demonstrators to get a handle on the debate, and finds a more complicated picture than you might expect.

✍️ Read the full story through the link in our bio.

05/08/2025

Once, Liscard was a bustling retail centre, with top brands like Woolworths, Burtons and Marks and Spencer. But like many northern towns, its high street declined.

A few years ago, a £30m bid for Levelling Up funds was rejected, Wilko closed its doors, and Liscard was labelled a "hotspot" of antisocial behaviour by the police. It looked like Liscard was following the same path of many places reliant on the declining UK high street.

But, amazingly, Liscard is still ticking along - home to record shops, micropubs, a diverse array of restaurants and its Cherry Tree shopping centre. And its finally getting some help: an award of £12m in regeneration funds, that's already being put to use.

For your weekend read, we travelled to Liscard and spoke to locals, shopkeepers, and councillors to find out how Wallasey's retail hub is staying electic, vibrant, and alive.

With neither Birkenhead’s “renaissance” or New Brighton’s “revival”, one Wirral town is keeping calm and carrying on