When we moved here, it was the place to be

County Road, Walton (Image: Liverpool ECHO)

County Road was once the north end’s busiest high street — but some residents say it is now “in bits”, others say it has died, and there are views which argue the area is in “managed decline”. So, when Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her Budget earlier this week, there was little optimism that Westminster could introduce anything to improve the lives of local residents.

The Walton constituency is Liverpool’s second most deprived constituency, and the 11th most deprived in England. The headline announcements in the Budget on Wednesday included the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap, a 4.1% increase in the minimum wage, the freezing of tax bands at higher rates, a mansion tax on homes worth over £2m, and cuts in green levies to b