ANOTHER week, and another regeneration project seems to have fallen by the wayside.

The future of the £11.6m Crosby Observatory project is hanging in the balance.

Its custodian, the Mersey Basin Campaign, is due to be wound up in March next year.

The project, already delayed by the recession, is struggling to find a new organisation to take it over.

Prime candidate Sefton Council says in these times of financial constraint it has other priorities like rebuilding its crumbling schools, and who can blame the local authority?

Priorities are what it is about now. Projects that once were a nice idea will no longer happen. It's sad, but that's the reality of regeneration at the moment.

I recently sat through a presentation by Liverpool Council's executive director for regeneration, John Kelly.

He outlined projects that, in his and the council's view, the city simply cannot do without.

Top of the list is a rebuilt Royal Hospital. This is important not just to make sure patients in Liverpool continue to get great care, but also to attract the best and brightest professionals.

Stemming from a new Royal, and the land it would free up, there are hopes of extending the city's so-called Knowledge Quarter to attract more bioscience research.

But, as Mr Kelly pointed out, it's no good having great assets if people cannot get into Liverpool.

So the Hall Lane bypass and the extension of the Edge Lane dual carriageway are also
on the council's top list of priorities, and are making good progress at the moment.

Included in "sorting out" Edge Lane is bringing forward proposals to redevelop Edge Lane retail park and the surrounding derelict buildings.

The council had been at daggers drawn with Isle of Man tycoon Albert Gubay's Derwent Holdings, which owns the properties, but more recently the company has declared "the war is over".

"At the moment, we are asking people to come to Liverpool, but saying enjoy the misery along the way," said Mr Kelly.

He can't imagine the city not having a "fantastic" new stadium in Anfield.

One million people come from outside the city to visit Liverpool FC every year, and Mr Kelly believes this could double if the club build their new ground.

"We need these things by 2015," declares Mr Kelly.

And he is right, Liverpool does need these things, and a six-year timescale is not wholly unrealistic.

But the fate of many of these projects is not in the council's hands.

Just like building in a recession is about priorities, making them happen is about collaboration.