Merseyside Digital Development

Residents of Wirral are being given the opportunity to train in video production and see their own videos on a special website, thanks to a new project which is launching across the borough.

With the aid of grants from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and the Single Regeneration Budget, a two-year pilot scheme will provide the kit and specialist training for what could become Wirral’s own community television service.

The project, which was developed from a feasibility study commissioned by the Birkenhead Community Regeneration Partnership and funded by Jobcentre Plus, will be administered by Birkenhead Sixth Form College in association with local community trusts, and is aimed at all sections of the community. Special courses will also be arranged for young people aged 16-19 who are not in training or employment. During the courses trainees will have the chance to make their own short videos.

Wirral Council’s Road Safety team has contributed to the project and trainees will be encouraged to work on videos which deliver essential road safety messages, mostly aimed at their own age-group. In the future the project will also be able to deliver public information videos on other issues such as health, community safety and the environment.

The cable company ntl have undertaken to set up a special website as a showcase for video material made by local residents and this is due to go live in Spring 2007, giving video-makers the chance for their work to be seen all over the world.

The project is managed by Bright Field, a company which specialises in community and neighbourhood television ventures (and which has run a similar project in the Knowsley area of Merseyside). The directors are Ian Kellgren, who was the longest-serving Artistic Director of the Liverpool Playhouse, and the former Granada TV producer Chris Kerr.

Bright Field’s brief is also to explore ways of assuring the financial sustainability of the project and rolling it out across the Wirral. The hope is that the project will become a successful social enterprise run by and for the people of the borough.

Bright Field are convinced that giving local people, who are often ignored by conventional television, the equipment and training to make their own voices heard can be an unbeatable tool of neighbourhood regeneration. Their experience shows that, with only a little training and encouragement, people can make powerful and compelling television.

For further information see the Wirral Community TV website