I read the article in last week’s Wirral Globe with dismay of the projects our council is considering implementing in these financially difficult times for so many of us.

A £10+ million pound cycle and walking route is proposed from Liscard to Birkenhead, and we know that cost is already forecast to rise considerably.

That is only the tip of the iceberg.

The desire is to extend that network slightly further into the Borough at yet more cost, and this is from a council apparently in dire financial straits.

Is a £10+ million cycleway really a sensible way of spending public funds?

What tiny percentage of that 320,000+ people will ever benefit bearing in mind we are a predominantly ageing population?

Are those in Heswall, West Kirby and Hoylake likely to use it?

Are the majority in Birkenhead and Wallasey likely to use it?

I think we all know the answer to that. 

So, I have a question as to whether this is justifiable expenditure for ALL the people of the borough.

The snapshot of the proposal I have seen shows a part of the route passing down Liscard Road seemingly by widening the present road at the expense of Central Park and the St John’s Church grounds both of which have mature trees that would appear to be sacrificed for the benefit of very few.

Is that an environmentally responsible action?

Moving of the Europa swimming pool and leisure centre is also mooted as are changes affecting our libraries.

We have posh new office buildings in Birkenhead centre while we have two town halls and the Cheshire Lines buildings standing empty and offices in Wallasey which have already been demolished.

To furnish and fit the new technology in these new offices and transferring over will also have cost an arm and a leg and ultimately for what?

Specialist consultants (don't we have enough on the council staff without paying out more?) determine that it could be preferable to demolish and rebuild the Europa Park Leisure Centre 200m away in amongst the shopping precinct.

Is that so that the Council staff won’t have to walk so far from their new posh offices to enjoy the facilities to which we, the ratepayers, already give them preferential access?

Meanwhile we have two listed town hall buildings for which we can no longer find a use.

There are approximately 320,000 of us for whom the Council is responsible in providing services and future planning.

They are also responsible for ensuring their income from central government and ourselves is spent judiciously. However, it is not just the financial management I am concerned about.

It is inevitable that in any demolition and building/civil engineering works be they paths and pavings or a new leisure centre, heavy machinery will need to be employed most of which runs on CO2 producing fuels.

The works will then require concrete, one of the most environmentally damaging materials there is to produce contributing about 8% to the world’s total CO2 annual output.

Then there is the steel which, it seems likely, we will shortly be importing from around the world where it is predominantly produced in the coal fired furnaces that we in this country are closing down. 

It would be interesting to know a comparison between the carbon footprints of building those two new office blocks and that of running and maintaining the existing premises now vacated.

Has anyone ever calculated the environmental damage this, and the proposed schemes, will cause?

If we also go down the route of new pavings of the type I witnessed in Liverpool, beautiful granite pavings not from existing quarries in Wales or Scotland, but imported from . . . China. 

More environmental damage.

I therefore ask "is our cash-strapped Council really acting responsibly and financially prudently in the interests of ALL its 320,000+ people?" I strongly suspect not.

'Dismayed' of Bebington