After the Dust Settles: Why This Isn’t About Point-Scoring

After publishing my recent deep dives,

• Opaque by Design - How Wirral’s Voting Records Fall Short of Public Expectations —and What We Found When We Looked

• Stalled by Structure – How Wirral’s Regeneration Engine Keeps Stuttering —and What We Learned by Reading Every Committee Minute Ourselves

• Side-Lined by the Sea: How New Brighton Got Left Out of Wirral’s Regeneration Agenda

I fully expect some backlash. Some will claim I’ve got things wrong. Others will say I’m stirring the pot. That’s fine. Criticism is part of the process.

But here’s the thing: this isn’t about politics. It’s not about individuals. It’s not about scoring points. It’s about trying to shine a light on how decisions are made in a system that’s broken—or at the very least, buckling.

Wirral Council is in serious financial trouble. In that kind of crisis, transparency and democracy aren’t just important—they’re essential. You can’t rebuild public trust without them.

The current system doesn’t help itself. Thousands of pages of PDFs. No voting records. Vague minutes. No clear timelines. No easy way to track decisions, spending, or progress.

It shouldn’t be this hard for the public to see what’s being done in their name—or what’s being delayed, deferred, or quietly dropped.

Technology can help. A modern, data-savvy council would give taxpayers a clear, user-friendly dashboard showing:

• What’s been decided

• Who voted

• What it cost

• What’s been delivered

This is basic stuff in the digital age. We shouldn’t have to rely on rummaging through committee minutes like it’s a Cold War archive just to get a sense of what’s going on.

None of this is an attack. But when institutions close ranks, get defensive, or treat questions as threats, it only deepens the problem. Opacity fuels distrust. Transparency builds trust.

So yes—expect mistakes in my work. Because mistakes are inevitable when the public record is a mess. But don’t focus on the typos. Focus on the system that makes scrutiny so difficult in the first place.

If you think something’s wrong, tell me. I’ll correct it. That’s the whole point. Because this is about making things better—for everyone.

— Rory Wilmer, New Brighton, June 2025