West Kirby poet Chris Lawrence has enjoyed success in a recent competition organised by the United Nations.

Chris submitted an entry to the United Nations competition. During the four week campaign, a social media Poetry for Peace contest invited the world to hear the living testimonies of atomic bomb survivors, called HIBAKUSHA, and respond to their stories in verse. Chris came third out of 712 poets who in total wrote 742 poems and has been invited to attend a winners presentation at the Japanese Embassy. You can read his poem right here.

Planning consent was granted last month the proposed Majestic Wine Warehouse retail unit at the site of the former Road Range car showrooms.

As reported in May, national wine retailer Majestic Wines submitted plans to convert the former Mercedes Benz garage on Column Road (pictured) in to a store for the bulk sale of wines, spirits and beers. Conditions applied to the planning approval include:

• minimum purchase of wine must be for six bottles
• store opening hours must not exceed 09.00 hours and 21.00 hours Mondays to Saturday
• store opening hours must not exceed 09.00 hours and 18.00 hours Sundays and Bank Holidays

Plans to convert a former car showrooms in to a wine store in West Kirby are to be considered by Wirral Council.

National wine retailer Majestic Wines has submitted plans to convert the former Road Range Mercedes Benz garage and showrooms on Column Road (pictured) in to a store for the bulk sale of wines, spirits and beers. The application, which was submitted in early April, will be decided no earlier than 17th May, 2011.

The proposed redevelopment retains the existing buildings with “significant improvements” to the external appearance of the site.

For news of the reported unexploded bomb on the beach between West Kirby and Hoylake visit Hoylake Junction.

It appears that the rumours about the West Kirby Loch Fyne venue closing are true.

The Ring-o-Bells in Village Road is to become a Greene King pub after a £150,000 refurbishment programme. It is expected that the venue will offer both drinks and food with a 60/40 split in favour of drink, with an anticipated turnover of £15,000/week. The once popular beer garden is included within the redevelopment.

Here are the retail manager vacancy details.

Photo by Sue Adair

This years West Kirby Sailing Club fireworks event takes place on Saturday, November 7th on the beach at West Kirby adjacent to the Sailing Club. Bonfire set alight at 6pm, fireworks at 6.30pm. Please make a donation to the RNLI.

There are a few locals in West Kirby who along with me blog about the area. Each take a different aspect of local life and are all worth a read.

Matt Thomas

Matt is a freelance photographer who often includes striking images of both people and places in and around West Kirby.

Little Shop of Sorrow

Keep up-to-date with Hazlehursts Linen Shop as the owner Ian fights against the recession and shares his thoughts right here.

Transition Town

A locals blog about practical sustainability, often detailing local events and news.

Visit West Kirby

The Visit West Kirby blog is a relatively new blog and includes posts about the shops and businesses that you’ll find in West Kirby.

Know of other interesting West Kirby blogs? Get in touch and let me know and I’ll try and get them listed. Note: blogs purely promoting a single business may well not cut the mustard sorry.

I’m a little behind schedule with my second West Kirby Property Watch. You’ll find last months report here.

There were 6 registered house sales in West Kirby in August including:

• the highest transaction was £210,000 for a property in Sandstone Dr
• the lowest transaction was £105,000 for a property in Hilton Grove

Current market details include:

• There are at least two properties currently on the market priced at over £2 million.
• There are approximately 145 West Kirby properties for sale at the moment.

Across Wirral as a whole, average property prices rose 0.4% giving an annual change of -12.3%

I reported back in July that long established West Kirby shop Hazelhurst Linen was to close. Well the good news is that proprietor Ian Hazelhurst has reconsidered and is intending to stay open! You can read Ian’s thoughts on his blog or much better still, call into the shop on Banks Road.

I stumbled upon an usual website the other month and revisited it this week. The site in question is called bookcrossing and it lets you find books that have been left by someone else for you to pick up.

The books might have been left on a park bench, in a gym, in a phone box you name it. The owner who leaves the book creates an entry in bookcrossing.com so that other members can search for released books. It’s possible to track the journey of a book from place to place. Sometimes I suspect that a book will be taken without anyone being aware of Book Crossing …though each book should have reference number on it.

So what’s this got to do with West Kirby? Well, surprisingly enough there are some people in West Kirby who are Book Crossing users and they are leaving books out in the wild for people to find! The latest book was left in what has been described as the Village Road cut-through. If you use Book Crossing please leave a comment and let everyone know if it works.