Metropolitan Borough of Wirral Facts for Kids

The Metropolitan Borough of Wirral is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside, in North West England. It has a population of 324,011 (2005 est.), and encompasses 60.6 square miles (157.0 km²) of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula. Major settlements include Birkenhead, Wallasey, Bebington, Heswall, Hoylake and West Kirby. Wirral is England's westernmost metropolitan borough, faced by the city of Liverpool to the northeast over the River Mersey.

Geography
History
Economy
Education
Members of Parliament
Places of interest
International relations
- Twin towns – sister cities
Freedom of the Borough

Geography

Bordering is the River Mersey to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and the River Dee to the west; the borough of Cheshire West and Chester occupies the remainder of the Wirral Peninsula and borders the borough of Wirral to the south.

History

The borough was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of the county boroughs of Birkenhead and Wallasey, along with the municipal borough of Bebington and the urban districts of Hoylake and Wirral.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Wirral at current basic prices published (pp. 240–253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

Year	Regional Gross Value Added	Agriculture	Industry	Services
1995	2,089	10	674	1,405
2000	2,609	5	814	1,789
2003	3,020	9	755	2,256

includes hunting and forestry

includes energy and construction

includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

Components may not sum to totals due to rounding

Plans were announced in 2006 for a £4.5bn development around the docklands to be called Wirral Waters. The development is a mixture of industrial, office, residential and leisure facilities. Planning permission was granted in 2010 and work began on the site in 2011, with development work potentially lasting for 30 years.

Education

When the borough was set up in 1974, it inherited comprehensive systems from the former County Boroughs of Birkenhead and Wallasey. In the part of Wirral formerly administered by Cheshire County Council, it inherited a selective system of grammar and secondary modern non-Roman Catholic schools and a comprehensive Roman Catholic school (St John Plessington Catholic College).

Until the implementation of the Education Reform Act 1988, education in Wirral continued to be organised in four areas; Birkenhead, Wallasey and the former parts of Cheshire known for education purposes as "Bebington" and "Deeside". However this Act introduced "open enrolment", allowing parents from anywhere in the borough, and outside it, to apply for a place for their child at any secondary school. As a result, significant numbers of pupils from the former "comprehensive areas" attend schools in the former "selective areas" and vice versa. The distinction between different types of school was to an extent masked, as all secondary modern and most comprehensive schools were named "High School". As a further result of this Act, St Anselm's College and Upton Hall School, both within the Birkenhead education area, became the only independent schools in the country to become state funded grant-maintained schools, retaining selective admissions policies to become Roman Catholic grammar schools.

A further change came as a result of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which effectively changed secondary modern schools into comprehensives as schools were no longer permitted to select by examination failure. In summary, Wirral now has a state secondary sector made up of 16 comprehensive schools (of which two are Roman Catholic) and 6 grammar schools (of which two are Roman Catholic).

Members of Parliament

Constituency	Member of Parliament		Year first elected
Birkenhead	Mick Whitley	Labour Party	2019
Wallasey	Angela Eagle	Labour Party	1992
Wirral South	Alison McGovern	Labour Party	2010
Wirral West	Margaret Greenwood	Labour Party	2015

Places of interest

Wirral Council maintains five designated Local Nature Reserves: Bidston Moss, Dibbinsdale, Heswall Dales, Hilbre Island and Thurstaston Common. It also operates the Merseyside part of Wirral Country Park, which was the first country park to be established in Britain.

International relations

Twin towns – sister cities

The Metropolitan Borough of Wirral is twinned or has sister city relationships with:

Lorient, France
Gennevilliers, France
Midland, Texas, United States
Reno, Nevada, United States
Sibiu, Romania, Romania

Freedom of the Borough

The following people, military units, organisations and groups have received the Freedom of the Borough of Wirral.

Individuals

Lieutenant Commander Ian Edward Fraser: 1993.
Joseph Lynch: 1996.
Raymond Holmes: 2005.
The Right Reverend David Urquhart: 2006.
Michael Chan, Baron Chan: 2006.
Stephen Maddox: 2010.
Police Constable David Phillips: 21 May 2016.
Frank Field, Baron Field of Birkenhead: 16 February 2022.
Paul O'Grady: 8 June 2023. (Awarded Posthumously)
Glenda Jackson: 9 October 2023. (Awarded Posthumously)

Military units

The Cheshire Regiment: 1996.
The Royal Marines: 1998.
1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment: 2009.
234 (Wirral) Transport Squadron, RLC (Volunteers): 18 February 2012.
107 (Lancashire and Cheshire) Field Squadron (Volunteers): 18 February 2012.

HMS Astute, RN: 6 July 2015.
Wallasey Sea Cadet Corps: 6 July 2015.

Organisations and groups

The 96 people killed at the Hillsborough disaster: 15 September 2017.
Andrew Devine (97th Hillsborough Victim): 21 March 2021.

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Metropolitan Borough of Wirral facts for kids

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