Liverpool Daily Post

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Published Aug 13, 2024

By Dan Haygarth | 13/08/24

Hello,

Today’s Liverpool Daily Post begins with a long read about the reinvention of Dale Street. Once the heart of the city’s business district, the street suffered from office closures and a rise in working from home - taking customers away from its pubs, bars and restaurants.

However, an influx of hotels - most notably the very grand Municipal in the former city council headquarters - has given it a new lease of life. I spoke to people who own businesses on Dale Street about what this has meant for them.

Elsewhere, there is finally movement in the Woolton Picture House saga - something long-term readers of this newsletter will be well aware of. Plans have been submitted to bring the historic venue back to life, after being closed for years.

In other news, Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram has suggested that people should consider leaving X (formerly Twitter) due to its changes under Elon Musk’s ownership.

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City street 'like no other' had to transform so it could thrive

"When we first took the premises, this end of Dale Street was derelict", says Gareth Morgan. Alongside his wife Vicky, Gareth has run craft beer bar The Dead Crafty Beer Co. since 2015 and the couple, who live in Garston, have witnessed plenty of change in that time.

Gareth, 45, added: "Back then, you had the pubs like The Ship & Mitre and The Excelsior but the retail units were all derelict. There was someone building what turned into the Dale Street Kitchen but nobody came here.

"People just walked past, it was all hoardings all round it. We did think 'what are we doing here?'"

Fortunately, Dead Crafty had customers on its doorstep, as Dale Street remained the heart of Liverpool's business district. "The Municipal was still open as offices then, so there were thousands of council workers", said Gareth. "For our Thursday and Friday trade, it was all council workers."

However, a significant blow arrived shortly after opening. Vicky, 47, said: "The Magistrates' Courts (found directly opposite the bar) closed six months after we opened. We thought it might turn into a hotel or something new, but that hasn’t happened yet."

The council also departed Dale Street a year later, taking their after-work drinkers with them. Meanwhile, the court building has sat empty since 2015, with a number of attempts to convert it into accommodation failing to get off the ground.

A new application was approved in March of this year, with it now set to become a four-star hotel. It would join a number of hotels on and around the street, including an ibis, DoubleTree, Premier Inn, Travelodge, The Z and The Municipal itself, which has converted the former council offices into luxury accommodation and is hoping to become Liverpool's first AA-rated five-star hotel. It opened in May 2023, boasting 168 rooms, 11 suites, a spa, a pool, a British brasserie, a tea room and the Palm Court cocktail bar.

The number of tourists that are based on Dale Street has provided welcome footfall for its pubs and food spots, replacing the office trade lost by closures and the rise of home working in the years since the Covid-19 pandemic. The lack of office workers in town could have proven fatal for the street's many watering holes, which long thrived on office workers' willingness to sneak out for a lunchtime pint or sink a few on the way home.

However, the hotels have proven to be a saving grace. Vicky said: "Before covid and before everyone started working from home, we would get all the after work drinkers in. We get hardly any now.

"But on the flip side of that, there are way more hotels now and our trade on Friday, Saturday and Sunday is tourists. All the regulars come mid-week and then at weekends we have every nationality in the bar. It's great.

"There are probably 12 hotels and apartment hotels within a five minute distance, we've also got Lime Street station, so people get off and walk past. They'll either come in on the way to check in or they'll check in and come straight back here. We're lucky in that sense and that's our biggest trade."

She added: "I don't even follow football but I know if Liverpool are playing at the weekend, because on the Friday we are just full of Scandinavians. We've now got regulars who are from Stockholm and places like that."

That change in demographic has been noticed by all of Dale Street's publicans, including Ben Garner. Ben, 53, has been a co-owner of distinctive The Ship & Mitre since 2007 and his pub has overcome a number of hurdles, including the financial crash and covid lockdowns, in that time.

Ben, who lives in Wallasey, told the ECHO: "It was a business district, but now I think it's the hotel district. That's an evolution of the way things are, we're never going to go back to offices with hundreds of people in - the council offices, the museum offices, the law courts, they've all gone by the wayside."

He added: "Covid hit and it was a nose dive. There's been a massive social change, we used to get a lot of office workers but with everybody working from home now, it's massively changed the way things are.

"But Dale Street has reinvented - there's a much younger crowd attached to it now. We've tried to brand as a beer quarter - we've got Dead Crafty, The Excelsior, The Vernon, Thomas Rigby's and so many more.

"We get people in from the hotels. Initially we noticed it when all the workmen from the Municipal started coming in, because they were working on it for two years. That was great, it was good for the area. It's another reason to come to Dale Street, there's meant to be two more new hotels, so that can only be good."

To read the full feature, click here

Fresh hope for historic cinema's reopening as new plans submitted

A historic Liverpool cinema which has been closed for years could reopen after a planning application was submitted. Woolton Picture House first opened in 1927 but it has been shut since the coronavirus pandemic, despite being supported by a crowdfunder and public money to enable it to open its doors again.

The cinema's owner announced that it would close for good in July 2020, having suffered a loss of business due to the pandemic. However, it was saved from permanent closure by a GoFundMe campaign and the government's culture recovery fund, which was designed to support arts venues during coronavirus lockdowns.

Around £24,000 was raised by the crowdfunder, while the picture house was awarded £37,809 by the culture recovery fund, which was administered by the British Film Institute (BFI). The cinema, found on Mason Street in Woolton Village, said it collected £25,625 of the awarded funds.

Supported by around £50,000 in external funding, the cinema's owner took to Facebook in 2021 to state an intention to reopen in 2022. That did not happen and further pledges regarding reopening followed, but they have not yet come to fruition.

The cinema's social media pages have been silent since October 2022, when a statement on Facebook revealed plans to reopen in spring 2023, subject to the stability of the financial climate. That post also detailed plans to turn the building into "a cultural venue", with a second, smaller screen, a stage and a function suite. The owners promised monthly updates in that post, but none have been provided and the site remains closed.

However, there could be new hope for the cinema's revival, as a planning application was submitted to Liverpool City Council this month. Submitted by Jonathan Woodward (Woolton Picture House Limited), the application intends to replace the roof and refurbish part of the building, so that it can reopen.

Drawings submitted as part of the application show plans to replace the roof with new slate tiles, with solar tiles on its south-facing part. The iconic Woolton Picture House sign would be refurbished, with a glass roof installed over it. The existing steps at the front door would be replaced with a ramp, while new planting flower beds would be placed near the entrance.

The ECHO has made a number of attempts to contact the cinema's owner about reopening - to no avail. Woolton Picture House has also been contacted for comment for this article.

Steve Rotheram says it is time for people to think about leaving X

The Mayor of the Liverpool City Region believes it is time for people to consider leaving the social media platform X. The site, formerly known as Twitter, has been blamed by many for fuelling the right-wing rioting the country has experienced in recent weeks.

Steve Rotheram, who saw serious violence and disorder break out in parts of his region - namely Southport and Liverpool - suggested that the social media site had a 'causational effect' on the shameful scenes here in Merseyside and around the country.

Speaking to Politics Home, Mayor Rotheram said: "It's just vile. It [X] really is in the gutter and something needs to happen. The time is approaching where we've got to all examine whether we should, en masse, withdraw from it and for there to be a different platform.”

But he accepted that if there is a large exodus of people from the forum, it could leave X open to the far-right, adding: "There won't be people like us countering the stuff that they're saying.

“It could be sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, that we end up with this a communication tool for the far right and Nazis and haters, and is that what we want? But something needs to happen, and if they [the social media companies] don't police it themselves, then the Government needs to step in and police it for them.”

The Labour mayor said he believes the Online Safety Act needs to be revisited and may not go far enough in its current form. He added: "We've seen that escalating in the last few days with (Elon) Musk and the way in which he's trying to intervene and purposely mislead people in this country in a certain direction. That's really dangerous."

“Musk is adding fuel to the fire. There don't seem to be those controls, or if there are controls, they're not interested in implementing those controls. It's become the Wild West, where anything goes on social media at the moment.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has recently said he will be taking stronger action against social media companies in the wake of the role they played in stirring up the recent trouble. He told reporters: “I do agree that we’re going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder, but the focus at the moment has to be on dealing with the disorder and making sure that our communities are safe and secure. This is not a law-free zone. And I think that’s clear from the prosecutions and sentencing."

A number of people linked to inciting violence in the UK have now been jailed. Sir Keir added: That’s a reminder to everyone that whether you’re directly involved or whether you’re remotely involved, you’re culpable, and you will be put before the courts if you’ve broken the law.”

He said tech bosses should be "mindful of the first priority, which is to ensure that our communities are safe and secure”.

The Prime Minister has found himself on the receiving end of a flurry of critical tweets from Mr Musk, who bought what was then twitter in 2022. Mr Musk accused Sir Keir of being 'the biggest threat to free speech in Britain', with the Prime Minister's spokeswoman stating that he would "disagree with that completely."