First the good news: Merseyside’s economy is growing fast. The bad news, of course, is that it is doing so from such a low base that catching up with the rest of the UK will be a long, arduous task.

Merseyside has, finally, climbed out of a subset of European Union regions designated for special economic aid because of their relative poverty. The aid, known as Objective One, was given to places where gross domestic product per head was 75 per cent or less of the EU average. Merseyside was eligible for such aid from 1994 until 2006 and received substantial financial help (see sidebar below).