Economy
Birkenhead Market was first established on what is now the site of Birkenhead Town Hall, between Chester Street and Hamilton Street, on 10 July 1835. An increase in the town's population by 1841 led to the opening on 11 July 1845 of a much expanded market on a larger site nearby. Michael Marks, of Marks & Spencer, opened one of his first seven 'Penny Bazaar' stalls here during the 1880s.
During the 1970s, the commercial centre of the town was redeveloped around the principal shopping area of Grange Road. Following two fires at the expanded Birkenhead Market in 1969 and 1974, it was later moved to new premises adjoining the Grange Shopping Precinct development. Commercial expansion continued in the early 1990s when the Pyramids Shopping Centre was opened.
Shipbuilding and ship repair still features prominently in the local economy. Cammell Laird entered receivership in 2001. The shipyard was sold and became 'Northwestern Ship repair & Shipbuilders', which grew into a successful business specialising in ship repair and conversion, including maintenance contracts for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. In September 2007 NS&S acquired the rights to use the Cammell Laird name. The company was renamed 'Cammell Laird Ship repair & Shipbuilders' on 17 November 2008, seeing the famous name return to Birkenhead after a seven-year hiatus.
As of February 2010, the town had an overall unemployment rate of 8.2% (males 12.4%, female 4.1%) as against a national average of 4.4%.
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Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)