What is now Merseyside was a largely rural area until theIndustrial Revolution, when Liverpool and Birkenhead's positions on the Mersey Estuary enabled them to expand. Liverpool became a major port, heavily involved in theAtlantic slave trade and in supplying cotton to the mills of Lancashire, and Birkenhead developed into a centre for shipbuilding. Innovations during this period included thefirst inter-city railway, the firstpublicly-funded civic park, advances indock technology, and a pioneeringelevated electrical railway. The county was established in 1974, before which the entirety of theWirral was in Cheshire and the remainder of the county was in Lancashire.
According to theOED, the earliest use of the word Merseyside (presumably as a general term for the lands surrounding the river) is from 1899.[2]
The county of Merseyside was created in 1974 from areas previously part of theadministrative counties ofLancashire andCheshire, along with the county boroughs of Birkenhead, Bootle, Liverpool, St Helens, Southport, and Wallasey.[3]
Merseyside had been designated a "Special Review" area in theLocal Government Act 1958. TheLocal Government Commission for England started a review of this area in 1962, based around the core county boroughs ofLiverpool,Bootle,Birkenhead andWallasey. Further areas, includingWidnes andRuncorn, were added to the Special Review Area by Order in 1965. Draft proposals were published in 1965, but the commission never completed its final proposals as it was abolished in 1966.
Instead, aRoyal Commission was set up to review English local government entirely, and its report (known as theRedcliffe-Maud Report) proposed a much wider Merseyside metropolitan area covering southwest Lancashire and northwest Cheshire, extending as far south asChester and as far north as theRiver Ribble. This would have included four districts:Southport/Crosby,Liverpool/Bootle,St Helens/Widnes andWirral/Chester. Meanwhile, in 1970 the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive (which operates today under theMerseytravel brand) was set up, covering Liverpool, Sefton, Wirral and Knowsley, but excluding Southport and St Helens.
The Redcliffe-Maud Report was rejected by theConservative government elected in 1970, but the concept of a two-tier metropolitan area based on the Mersey area was retained in awhite paper published in 1971. TheLocal Government Bill presented to Parliament involved a substantial trimming from the white paper, excluding the northern and southern fringes of the area, Chester, and Ellesmere Port; and, for the first time, including Southport, whose council had requested to be included. Further alterations took place in Parliament, withSkelmersdale being removed from the area, and a proposed district including St Helens andHuyton being subdivided into what are now the metropolitan boroughs ofSt Helens andKnowsley.
At first, the county had a two-tier system of local government: the fivemetropolitan boroughs shared power with theMerseyside County Council, which was based in Liverpool.[4] The first elections of the 99 members of the county council were held inApril 1973, in advance of the formal establishment of the council on 1 April 1974. The body had a strategic role in areas such as transport; the boroughs had more powers thannon-metropolitan districts, in that they were additionally responsible for education and social services, responsibilities allocated to county councils elsewhere.
In 1986 the county council, along with all other metropolitan county councils, was abolished under theLocal Government Act 1985.[4] Thus the boroughs are now effectivelyunitary authorities.
Merseyside is divided into two parts by theMersey estuary; the Wirral is on the west side of the estuary, upon theWirral Peninsula, and the rest of the county lies on the east side. The eastern part of Merseyside borders ontoLancashire to the north andGreater Manchester to the east, with both parts of the county borderingCheshire to the south. The territory comprising the county of Merseyside previously formed part of theadministrative counties of Lancashire (east of the River Mersey) and Cheshire (west of the River Mersey). The two parts are linked by the twoMersey Tunnels, theWirral line ofMerseyrail, and theMersey Ferry.
Merseyside containsgreen belt interspersed throughout the county, surrounding the Liverpool urban area, as well as across the Mersey in the Wirral area, with further pockets extending towards and surrounding Southport, as part of the western edge of the North West Green Belt. It was first drawn up from the 1950s. All the county's districts contain some portion of belt.
Ipsos MORI polls in the boroughs of Sefton and Wirral in the 2000s showed that in general, residents of these boroughs identified slightly more strongly to Merseyside than to Lancashire or Cheshire respectively, but their affinity to Merseyside was more likely to be "fairly strong" than "very strong".[11]
TheLiverpool City Region Combined Authority, which includes the five boroughs of Merseyside and theBorough of Halton in Cheshire, oversees functions given to it under the area'sdevolution deal with the UK government, such as transport, housing, innovation, employment, energy, tourism, and trade, and some responsibilities relating to crime and justice.[12][13]
The planning and commissioning of care within Merseyside is the responsibility of anintegrated care system, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, which coversNHS and other care services within theCheshire and Merseyside areas. It also oversees Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership. NHS Cheshire and Merseyside serves a combined population of 2.7 million as of 2024[update].[16]
Merseyside is served by sixmotorways: theM58 to the north,M56 to the south,M6 &M62 to the east andM53 to the west. TheM57 acts as an outer ring road and bypass for the city of Liverpool itself. TheRiver Mersey is crossed byQueensway Tunnel andKingsway Tunnel, which link Liverpool to Birkenhead and Wallasey respectively, and by theSilver Jubilee Bridge andMersey Gateway Bridge, which link Runcorn and Widnes. The Mersey Gateway Bridge opened in 2017 and is designed to improve transport links between Widnes and Runcorn and other key locations in the vicinity.[18]
Merseyrail is the county's urban rail system and is operated byMerseytravel, the combinedpassenger transport executive for the Liverpool City Region. The network has 66 stations on two lines; the Northern Line covers the centre of the county and the Wirral Line covers the eponymous peninsula.[24] The two lines meet inLiverpool City Centre andLiverpool Central is the county's most-used station, with 10.75 million passengers in 2021–22.[25][26][21] The network extends toOrmskirk in Lancashire, and Ellesmere Port and Chester in Cheshire.[27] Merseytravel brands the network in the east of the county as theCity Line, but the services on it are not operated by Merseyrail. TheBorderlands line connects the west of the Wirral to Wales and is operated by Transport for Wales.
TheMersey Ferry has operated since the 1200s, currently betweenWirral andLiverpool City Centre at Seacombe, Woodside and Liverpool Pier Head. In 2009–2010 it had 684,000passengers using the service.[32]
The Port of Liverpool is acontainer port that handles over 33milliontonnes offreight cargo per year, making it the fourth busiest port in the United Kingdom as of 2022[update].[33]It serves more than 100 global destinations including Africa, Australia, China, India, theMiddle East andSouth America. Imports includegrain andanimal feed,timber, steel, coal, cocoa, crude oil, edible oils and liquid chemicals; there are exports ofscrap metal for recycling.[34][35] A second container terminal,Liverpool2 atSeaforth, can handlePost-Panamax vessels and doubled the port's capacity when it opened in 2016.[36]
Liverpool John Lennon Airport is the county's international airport. It is inSpeke, 6.5 miles (10.5 km) south-east of Liverpool city centre, with 5 million departures in 2020.[37] Flights are primarily operated byeasyJet andRyanair, and over 70 destinations are served by the airport, including regular flights to theNear East andNorth Africa.[38][39][40]
The airport is planning substantial expansion, and is forecast to handle more than 12million passengers by 2030, as well as targeting permanent direct long haul flights and significantly larger terminal facilities.[41]
^Sefton pollArchived 26 September 2006 at theWayback Machine, where 51% residents belonged strongly to Merseyside, and compared with 35% to Lancashire;Wirral pollArchived 26 September 2006 at theWayback Machine, where 45% of residents belonged strongly to Merseyside; compared with 30% to Cheshire. In both boroughs, "very strongly" ratings for the historic county were larger than that for Merseyside, but "fairly strongly" was lower.
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