So Long MBC, and Thanks for all the Fish...

Twenty five years ago the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, set up an organisation with the mission to address the problems of water quality and associated landward dereliction on the Mersey and its tributaries. Heseltine recalls:

“The Mersey got to me. It was enormously significant in the history of our country, and I felt a debt to that river…It was an open sewer, and I felt deeply sad that we hadn’t realised what an enormous, valuable resource it was. That was where the idea came from, that we must make good the degradation of centuries.”

And so the Mersey Basin Campaign was formed. Heseltine knew that the enormous task could not be resolved over night and offered government backing for 25 years. Today, exactly quarter of a century later, the Campaign has reached its original objectives, so 18 months ago the Campaign took the bold steps to formally conclude the Mersey Basin Campaign and handover the legacy before turning off the lights. As Chief Executive Walter Menzies says “The spirit in which the decision was made was one of achievement, success and celebration.” (here here!)

Having worked with The Mersey Basin Campaign on a number of projects for the past 7 years, Stardotstar were both delighted and honoured to win the tender to build the Campaign’s legacy website. It is befitting that an organisation such as this should go out in style, and share everything they have achieved and learned with anyone who can benefit from their work in the future.

The legacy website is left as an archive, but not everyone who will use the site will be archivist. We broke down our users into two groups: browsers and searchers. Whereas searchers might be looking for a specific resource or piece of information, the browsers may not know anything about the Campaign when they stumble upon the website. As such it was important to us that we created a site that worked for both types of user, letting browsers dig deeper, and searchers wonder off and discover more.

The site contains nearly 300 articles, 90+ images, audio and video clips. These can be discovered by browsing by year, by theme, by region or by tag or (soon) by searching the archive directly.

Having worked with many wonderful people at the Campaign for so long, we also knew that it was the people that made the Campaign the success it was. To incorporate this we included 7 collections, carefully curated by the team, and the thematic Personal Reflection letting the voices of the Campaign speak for themselves. As part of the commission, Stardotstar will host and maintain the website for the next 5 years…

So Long Mersey Basin Campaign, it’s been an absolute pleasure working with you, and we wish you all the best of luck in your individual careers for the next 25 years… Keep in touch ;-)

Gareth Langley – 31st March 2010.