Around 100 people from all ages and walks of life came out in a powerful show of support for their community, which they say has been forgotten and neglected. The ECHO has been covering issues in the south Liverpool suburb of Speke in recent weeks and months, where locals say they feel cut off from the wider city and bemoan a lack of investment in parks and community spaces for the area's 4,000 children.
Community campaign launches with protest
Grandmother-of-16 Dawn Millea has been the driving force behind a new community campaign which focusses on the need for a new park for the children of Speke. Dawn and others living in the area have formed a new community group called Speke Together for a Brighter Future.
And on Tuesday afternoon, the new group made its first big public showing, gathering around 100 local people outside Speke Library for a community event and protest.
Performances and questions to councillor
The event included performances from local majorettes groups - Merseybeats and Liverpool Fusiliers - some of whom are being forced to practice in car parks because of the lack of appropriate and available community spaces.
The public event was held to coincide with a meeting of South Liverpool Homes, the major housing builder in Speke, which was taking place inside the library at the time.
Dawn and her fellow committee members had asked for Speke local councillor Doreen Knight to attend the event and had issued her with a range of questions about what money has been spent in the area in recent decades. Cllr Knight later said she could not attend.
Responses read out at event
But Dawn did read out some of the responses she had received from Cllr Knight to those questions, which ranged from where community contributions from developers - known as Section 106 payments - had been spent in the area to what Dawn described as the "systemic neglect" of Speke and why this has been allowed to happen by those in charge locally.
The scores of people that took time out of their busy lives to show up for the first event held by this new community campaign showed the strength of feeling that lies in this area of the city. For many who live in Speke, this is a place that for too long has been forgotten about.
Speaking to the ECHO at the event, Dawn said: "We are absolutely made up with the amount of people who have turned up today. It is just showing everybody that we are all doing this together."
"This is what everyone has been saying for a long time. We are just organised now with a new group run by a committee and a Facebook page."
"We are not involved with any political party, this is all about Speke being neglected. Everybody is saying, enough is enough, give us back what we should have and that is it."
