News in Heswall

Next week, Aldi on May Road will introduce a new bargain hour which will see the cost of some foodstuffs cut by 75%.

The budget supermarket chain says it will lower the price of perishable fresh food - including fruit, bread, meat and vegetables - before a store closes.

Five men have been arrested overnight by Merseyside Police following 'Operation Target' deployments in Wirral.

These included a 31 year old man who they believed connected to a business robbery in November 2020 on Old Chester Road, a crime in which a machete was used to seriously injure another man.

Tesco has joined Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons by deciding to prevent shoppers who won't wear a face mask from entering its supermarkets.

The company will also deploy extra security to assist store managers.

Garden waste brown bin collections will be operating a four-weekly collection for the time being due to the developing COVID-19 situation.

The garden waste collection service took a scheduled break over Christmas and New Year and started up again today.

Wirral Council has introduced a booking system at its symptom-free testing centres so as to prioritise testing for key workers and anyone else who simply cannot work from home during the national lockdown.

The borough currently has four symptom-free testing centres in New Brighton, Greasby, Eastham and Birkenhead and has seen a huge increase in the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 since Christmas.

Following on from our report on the proposed Wetherspoon pub for Heswall - which will extend the abandoned building on The Mount formerly occupied by The Exchange - the Heswall Society has expressed concern about its operating hours and will resist them.

Wetherspoon's planning application states that it aims to be open between 8am and midnight Monday to Friday; 8am to 1am on Saturday; and 8am to midnight on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

A popular poetry competition created in memory of a student from Calday Grammar School is now accepting entries from five age groups.

The Christopher Salmon Poetry Competition is named after the 15-year-old, who passed away suddenly in 2009 from a rare streptococcal infection.

Cheshire Police officers have been patrolling Parkgate today, reminding people they are only permitted to leave their homes for exercise.

This follows yesterday's invasion of the Parkgate front by "hundreds of people" who took advantage of a clear, dry and sunny afternoon to take a Sunday break from lockdown.

Regrettably, due to the new coronavirus restrictions, Wirral Hospice St John's has had to cancel its Christmas tree collections for this year.

After a rigorous risk assessment and in view of the rising infection rates in Wirral, the hospice has been left with no choice but to cancel.

Wirral South MP Alison McGovern has come out in support of Thornton Hough Trust as it attempts to fend off a second attempt to build on Hill Top Farm, a large green space adjacent to the village.

A planning application to Wirral Council by Leverhulme Estates, refused in 2019, proposed the building of a care village. It would have included a 48 bed care home, 24 close care apartments, 96 assisted living apartments, and 'The Village Centre', complete with restaurant, cafe-bar and shop.