Everyone’s been talking about the art work on the former Ethel Austin building (the multi coloured mural of the woman, by street artist Whoam Irony ) and this can only be a positive thing to get people talking again about the need to regenerate County Road.
However, I hope that this is just the beginning because what do we mean when we talk about regeneration of County Road?
It’s absolutely great to encourage art and culture here, but if we are really going to make County Road thrive then we need to have more parking spaces for cars, perhaps make some of the area pedestrianized as well as make the rent on the shops more affordable to give an incentive and encourage new businesses and existing businesses to set up and remain.
Most importantly too, we need to clean up our road, and by that I mean tackling the anti-social behaviour that is too often present here, including all the dog muck and litter.
As one of our most well-known shopping streets in Merseyside, I do think there’s a lot of hope and potential for future businesses to do well here and this in turn will benefit the residents living nearby and the wider community of Walton.