Headlines: Sefton Park and Stanley Park awarded Green Flag status as among best in the UK

Sefton Park and Stanley Park have been named as two of the country’s best parks.

They have both been awarded the prestigious Green Flag status, as the scheme marks its Silver Jubilee.

The Liverpool parks played a vital role for people through lockdown as a place to relax, exercise and meet friends and family safely.

The Green Flag award is the international quality mark for parks and green spaces around the UK.

Managed by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy it rewards well-managed parks and green spaces an sets the benchmark standard for the management of green spaces.

Sefton Park, with its landscape of watercourses, has become established as Liverpool’s premier heritage landscape during its 140 year history and is Grade 1 listed.

Stanley Park is Grade 2 listed with English Heritage and is well known for its distinctive design and architecture, which includes a formal terrace, gothic style shelters in red sandstone and the refurbished Victorian Isla Gladstone Conservatory.

Merseyrail celebrates its 50th birthday

Merseyrail is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month as the brand was first seen on trains in October 1971.

Pupils from schools across the Liverpool City Region have celebrated this anniversary by designing birthday cards for the rail operator.

The name ‘Merseyrail’ was created by the British Rail Liverpool Division following the creation of The

Mersey Railways Extensions Act, and it was decided that a new name was needed due to the local nature of how our rail systems were operated.

The network was divided into four separate segments – Exchange, Central Low-Level, Central and Lime Street – and it was decided that the routes would be renamed Northern, Wirral and City lines.

Gino D’Acampo’s Sky Bar given new closing times

Gino D’Acampo’s new Liverpool restaurant has been granted a licence to stay open until 02:30.

Gino’s 360 Sky Bar, in the new Innside by Melia hotel in the city centre had already been operating under the hotel’s licence but restaurant bosses had applied to Liverpool Council earlier this year to allow the venue, and its sky bar, to operate under its own licence.

Alcohol sales in the restaurant and bar will stop half an hour before the 02:30 closing time.