Special report: With new powers coming in to tackle a surge in crime and anti-social behaviour in Wirral’s Woodchurch Estate, local people say the authorities need to look at what has been taken away from them for the real causes of these problems
Lenny Fowler has lived on the Woodchurch Estate in Wirral since 1953 years and has been involved in coaching boxing and football
No one knows the Woodchurch Estate like Lenny Fowler. He has lived on the sprawling housing development in the Upton area of Wirral for 72 of his 73 years and has spent his life trying to make things better for the people who live here.
After running boxing clubs, football teams and darts leagues for the local community, Lenny says he has officially given up on this place. “No one gives a s*** about the Woodchurch”, he laments. Clad in a flat cap and zipped down black Lonsdale jacket, he sighs heavily as he looks around at the place he cares so much about.
Walking with his rescue dog Missy in tow, Lenny directs the ECHO down to the shuttered Woodchurch Leisure Centre. This place was the heart of this community for 60 years but now stands as a dilapidated symbol of what has been lost.
Lenny points to a sign on the front of the closed down facility, which states: “Department of Education and Cultural Services” and gives a knowing look. “In the 60s and 70s you could go and do everything in that centre – dentists, doctors – its all just been taken away,” he adds.
Woodchurch Leisure Centre closed in March 2020 at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2022 it was earmarked for demolition as part of a £20m budget cuts plan passed by Wirral Council, which has found itself in a dire financial crisis in recent years.
The leisure centre had been heavily subsidised by the cash-strapped local authority who said it would have needed significant repairs to restore, but the local community weren’t prepared to lose it without a fight.
Supporters raised an impressive £83,000 to try and take over the running of the centre. But in 2023 the council decided not to allow that bid to move forward and pushed forward with the demolition plan instead. Earlier this month two contracts worth £1.3m were agreed to remove asbestos and pull down the building.
“They want to knock it down now,” says Lenny – who was involved in various campaigns to save the centre. “Surely if they knock a building down that was for the community, they should replace it with something for the community? But there is no suggestion of that.”
The closed Woodchurch Leisure Centre is now set to be demolished
“They were saying it wasn’t being used but it was, there was bowls, the schools and pensioners were swimming here. You could come down here and that car park would be full on Saturday and Sunday. I learnt to swim in there. Everyone did.”
Someone else sharing the concern about the demolition decision is Wirral West MP Matt Patrick.
He said the timing of the demolition decision will have come “completely out of the blue” for residents of the estate and said the lack of consultation “will do nothing to build confidence with residents that the council is able to listen and respond to their needs.”
To say that confidence is low on this estate would be something of an understatement.
“We always say this is the forgotten estate,” says Lenny. “When it rains I get a big pond outside my house, you get drowned when a car drives through it. That road has been like that for 10 years.”
“See this footpath”, he says, using his walking stick to gesture to a pathway close to the playing fields next to the leisure centre. “That hasn’t had any work done on it for 45 years. Every winter you see the kids in the school falling on their arses, or its flooded and the only way they can get through is to walk through it and go into school wet.”
“I’ve given up now,” he adds with a resigned expression. “The reason for that is that no one cares about the Woodchurch. We get no help. They look at the Woodchurch as a waste of money.”
When the leisure centre demolition plans were first mooted, locals expressed grave concerns at what this would mean for local young people. Some said more kids would end up hanging around on the streets and be at greater risk of being taken in by organised crime groups.
Those concerns were not unjustified. Crime and anti-social behaviour has reached such a high point on parts of The Woodchurch that the council is now consulting on a new Public Spaces Protection Order to try and get a grip on the situation.
The action is being taken after the local authority’s Anti-Social Behaviour Team carried out a review, finding that a total of 514 reported incidents of anti-social behaviour and related crime were reported to police concerning the New Hey Road area specifically in the year between July 1 2024 and 2025.
The new PSPO means officers can break up groups of more than two if they are acting anti-socially and order them to leave the area. People will also be banned from wearing face coverings if officers believe they are trying to hide their identity and there will be a crack down on those riding bikes, scooters or e-bikes in a reckless or inconsiderate manner.
This behaviour is something New Hey Road resident Melanie Phillips knows all too well having had a recent run-in with a youngster on a bike and his friends.
“There are kids on these push bikes doing wheelies and they land them right in front of you,” explains the 65-year-old, who has lived here for 40 years.
“It happened to me the other day. This lad was about 12 and he brought the bike down right next to me. I called him a bloody idiot and he got off his bike and gave me a load of abuse. After that there was three or four of them surrounding me and ganging up on me.”
Melanie says she no longer wants to walk down the streets that surround her family home.
“I don’t feel safe walking down the road with my bag at night. I go up the road to the bingo sometimes but I always make sure I get a lift home, even though its not far,” she explains.
She adds: “I’m glad I never bought my house, because I am considering getting off this estate. If I had the choice right now I would move.”
Melanie’s neighbour Belinda Sadler agrees that anti-social behaviour is a problem on the estate, but lays the blame at the authorities who she feels have taken away the facilities that could keep kids on the straight and narrow.
Belinda Sadler has lived on the Woodchurch Estate all her life
The 50-year-old, who has lived in the area her entire life, says: “This used to be a community but it’s completely gone now.
“We’ve got a derelict sports centre down there, there is just nothing for the local kids so it makes sense that anti-social behaviour is happening. We used to go to the baths three times a day as kids, now it is just derelict.
She adds: “There are no resources from the government or the council so kids are ending up in gangs. It is a form of grooming. I don’t think the kids realise the impact of their behaviour.”
While things feel pretty bleak for those on the Woodchurch right now, there are a couple of glimmers of hope on the horizon.
Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram has pledged to build a new train station on the estate, supported by £1.7bn of new funding, with a vision to see more trains taking people regularly to and from Liverpool.
Currently the estate is served only by Upton station at its north end, but this sees just one train arrive every 45 minutes which terminates at Bidston.
On top of this, the Woodchurch Estate was recently awarded a £20m pot of funding from the government as part of its Pride in Place programme, aimed at revamping deprived communities with the creation of new youth services, public spaces and parks.
The cash will come in ten annual sums of £2m and local boards will be established to decide how it is spent.
This will be the kind of project you can bet Lenny Fowler will want to be involved with, he has seen the positives that can come from getting young people into sport and activities.
“When we did the boxing here, we had about 40/50 kids doing it and none of them had a criminal record,” he recalls.
“Within months of that being closed down they were hanging round the shops, the police were picking them up and doing them for vandalising.”
But the people of this “forgotten estate” will believe that improvements are coming when they see them. They have been let down too many times before.
“Until the government and the council do something to address these issues then anti-social behaviour will keep happening,” says Belinda. “We feel cut off on this estate.”
Wirral Council was approached for a response.