Despite having a slick transport network, good roads and picturesque town centres, The Wirral on Merseyside has a problem. All its young people are leaving.

“When you see the Census data the [area’s] 320,000 population [had] exponentially small population growth,” explained Mark Braund, head of the Liverpool studio at architectural designer BDP, which is consulting on a raft of regeneration projects in the area.

“In the 2000s and 2010s the birth rate was at the national average so people are being produced in the right numbers; they’re just not staying.

“Like a lot of places there’s a ‘silver tsunami’ where there’s population growth at the top end and the younger people just leaving the borough.”

According to Braund, who hails from the area’s de-facto capital Birkenhead, the big problem is not a bad reputation or lack of scenery, it’s the challenge of being located on the other side of the Mersey to Liverpool.

“[In the late 2000s] the Liverpool One [city centre redevelopment] was delivered,” Braund continued.

“This helped reshape and reframe Liverpool’s centre and was pretty transformational. You had hotels, retail, workspaces all kind of mixed in.

“[But] it was probably one of the death knells for Birkenhead as an offer. This major competitor on the opposite side of the water really got its act together and delivered a major piece of regeneration in the city centre. It made Birkenhead, at a time when there was a major recession, a place which really couldn’t compete.”

Having high streets oversaturated by retail outlets and still struggling to recover from the 2008 crash, the global pandemic was for The Wirral, like many places, another hammer blow.

However, Braund is hugely optimistic about the future he sees every day as a consultant on many local council and investor efforts to deliver an ambitious new vision for the area.

Proposals for new developments, many of which transform industrial landscapes, have continued to be pushed forward since local stakeholders pitched the £1 billion regeneration concept to the property market at the industry’s showpiece trade event in 2017.

As these plans take shape across The Wirral, Braund believes inspiration can be drawn from across the Atlantic.

“[We want to make] Birkenhead Brooklyn to Liverpool’s Manhattan,” he continued.

“It can be the place where you go and live, have an amazing family lifestyle with green parks, and great infrastructure that gets you into the city really easily.

“I remember going to Brooklyn probably in like 1999/2000 and it was kind of rough and raw, but there was loads of stuff going on and it was the cool place to go and live. Manhattan [on the other hand] had the gleaming Upper West Side.

“Now you go to Brooklyn and it’s a major development, all the waterfronts completely transformed and, I mean, it’s not Manhattan [but that’s the point].

“We’re trying to take a similar approach in the regeneration of Birkenhead.”

Unlike other areas seeking to regenerate their town centres that are in desperate need of the infrastructure necessary to rebuild the local economy, many of the assets necessary for success already exist in The Wirral.

“It’s got eight underground stations around the town and two road tunnels that pump 35,000 people through each day over to Liverpool, it’s also got the world famous ferry on its doorstep,” Braund added.

“On top of that you’ve got this amazing heritage infrastructure. There’s a Georgian set piece called Hamilton Square in Birkenhead that’s got more grade one listed buildings than anywhere in the UK outside Trafalgar Square.”

The peninsula’s stunning natural beauty has a long history of attracting wealthy and famous residents. Over the years, celebrities like Daniel Craig, John Bishop and Ian Botham have been attracted to its pretty villages, while high-profile names in the world of football such as John Barnes and Rafa Benitez have also called it home.

Its issue has been that those millionaires had a tendency to drive their Ferraris to other parts of the region to spend, a trend Braund sees an opportunity to change.

“When you look at the data the most affluent people on The Wirral actually live in Birkenhead,” he said.

“But what happens today is no one spends the cash in Birkenhead. They all leapfrog across to the other side of the water or elsewhere.

“If we can capitalise on just a small fraction of those people, say ‘let’s turn Birkenhead back into a capital that you’re proud of, that you want to kind of come to,’ [the potential is enormous].”

Directing more of that wealth into the local area will, Braund hopes, create employment opportunities for the area’s most disadvantaged too.

“One of the shocking figures is that the disparity between wealthy and poor in The Wirral is number one in the country,” he added.

“You’ll die ten years younger if you live in Birkenhead than if you live on the west of the borough.

“It’s important that we bring everyone up and have an inclusive regeneration policy.

“[We want to make it so] people can work in the service economy that will exist in these places and with the homes that are affordable for them to live in that don’t necessitate them getting on a bus to travel for half an hour to get to their place to work.”