"Breck Road was beautiful once upon a time", according to Julie Davison, who was "born and raised" in the area.
Walking past a bookies and Lloyds Bank, she said: "It's a little bit down in the dumps, as you can see right now." Wrappers and a plastic bottle blow across the road where many shutters are down on a weekday afternoon.
A derelict building, with weeds growing through red brickwork around boarded-up windows, greets you as you enter Everton ward. Julie, 59, remembers a street lively with independent shops in her childhood. Now, "we've only got the bl***y Asda", she said.
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Julie told the ECHO: "Businesses and people are suffering. It's up and down. It's really quite bad right now. The cost of living is hitting everyone hard. It's just a sad affair to see all these shops closing down.
"God, I can remember this from when I was four. It was fabulous, the shopping area was fantastic. We had a millinery, a hat shop, further down Breck Road. It was buzzing, it was absolutely on fire. That was even before that mall was built. It really was something else.
"There used to be three card shops on Breck Road. Now there's only one. They've gone. It's just so sad, I hope no more of them shut down. You just want to see it get back up and running. I know it's easier said than done though, isn't it?"
Originally from Sri Lanka, shopkeeper Kugathas Vairamuthu has picked up Scouse affectations in the seven years he's run Queens Store, a blue-fronted convenience store and off-licence. "Do you need a bag, love? Thank you, love", he tells a customer as he serves them through a Perspex screen.
Nearly 50, he last had a day off in July. Kugathas said: "It's a very hard business. It's always been hard, but now it's very hard. Prices are up, everything is going up, up, up. One wine was £4.99, now it's £7.49.
"If you've got no money, you can't buy. For poor people and working people, it's very hard spending money now. Every day this shop is down £500 or £600. Every single day. It's not worth it."
He doesn't make anything from the business beyond the salary he needs to feed his kids. After bills and wages, there's nothing left, just the stock on the shelves. Even letting people pay their gas and electric bills leaves him £65 out of pocket each week.
The commission he gets isn't enough to make ends meet, but he keeps offering the service otherwise he fears customers will go elsewhere. Kugathas said: "I feel very bad. Another two or three years and everything will close."
Breck Road is still busy with cars flowing and people walking. Just between Oakfield Road and Breckfield Road, it has a flower shop, barbers, charity shop, furniture store, solicitors, a mosque and a chippy.
There are also chains like Iceland, numerous betting shops, and several pawnbrokers, who've seen a surge in business as rising food and energy bills push people to swap heirlooms for quick cash.
In Nest Café, Paul was eating a sausage butty with a friend from Wrexham. During his three years living here, he'd visit pubs like The Royal at the top for a game of pool, and the Lutine Bell half way down to watch the Grand National.
But even where buildings are occupied, some shops have flaking paint and boarded windows on upper floors. Paul said: "It's quite sad to see them empty when you've got so many homeless people."
Paul has mixed feelings about the area, saying: "Everyone seems to get on with each other, people stop and say 'hiya', but you've got your horrible people and your nice people."
He added: "It's got its niceties, its derelict houses, its bad areas, but I suppose everywhere has got that really. You look around and see some nice posh houses and think, 'If I had that house, I'd like to pick it up and put it somewhere else'. I'd choose a better area. It's quite noisy, and a bit violent at night."
The violence has forced Kugathas to reduce his opening hours. Queens Store used to regularly open until 2am. Now it closes by 11pm except for Friday and Saturday nights. Kugathas feels it's just too dangerous.
He's been attacked with pepper spray and had flaming paper thrown through the shop door. He said: "Sometimes young people make trouble, standing there smoking weed. I say 'Move from here, don't disturb my business', but they don't move. It makes me feel very bad. Last time I argued, they broke my van."
He pointed to CCTV of a road where his white van is parked. Behind it, people buy and sell drugs, he said.
A public spaces protection order, implemented by Liverpool Council to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour, has been in place in an Everton centred on Breck Road since 2018. Extended for a further three years in 2021, It gives police powers to disperse and fine people engaging in activities with "a detrimental effect on the quality of life for those in the local community".
This includes using abusive, threatening or offensive words or behaviour, driving a mechanically propelled vehicle in an anti-social manner or without a registration plate, and individuals covering their face, except for with specific items of clothing reflecting the individual's cultural values.
Sarah Rotherham, a Merseyside Police community inspector, said: "This type of behaviour will not be tolerated and extra officers will remain in the area to disperse any groups causing such incidents, and to provide reassurance to the vast majority of law-abiding people in the area."
But with kids of his own, Kugathas is sometimes reluctant to call the police on teenagers. He wants to give them a second chance, particularly when they're being a nuisance rather than violent.
If he does call the police, little happens in the way of a permanent or preventative solution. He said: "When you ring the police, the police come and they run away. Police do nothing after. What can I do except take a video?"
Things have got "a little bit better" in recent months in an area he describes as "half-half - half the people are okay". He said: "Before I saw fights every day, but now, no."
He blames drugs and a lack of money and opportunities for crime and antisocial behaviour in the area, saying: "People don't know what to do. What is there to do?"
Everton is the most deprived ward in Merseyside, according to Census 2021 data. One in three people living in the area are deprived by at least one of four measures considered in the data - education, employment, health and disability, and housing.
Almost a third of children in the ward live in absolute poverty, with household income less than 60% of the median income in 2010/11, according to Everton's Liverpool Council ward profile.
Opportunities are limited for young people who've "had no or little engagement with youth provision for approximately six years", according to Dawn Lee, a youth worker who co-founded a local training organisation, Positive Pathways.
Local authority spending on youth services has fallen by nearly £1bn in England and Wales, a real terms cut of 70%, since 2010 when the Conservative Party entered government. More than 4,500 youth worker jobs have been cut and 750 youth centres have closed.
Dawn said: "This means no positive alternative activities or interventions to prevent young people engaging in risky behaviours which can lead to antisocial behaviour."
She launched the community interest company in 2020 because she and her business partner "felt that young people were being let down".
There are youth and play opportunities in the area, but Dawn thinks young people and providers need more practical training, so Positive Pathways offers youth sessions, group sessions and issue-based sessions.
It's recently been awarded funding for a project engaging with young people on the street and offering welfare checks to local shops, including in the area around Breck Road.
Dawn said: "Within the Everton and Anfield area, there is a massive lack of opportunity for training and employment opportunities for young people from the area. This needs to be addressed to prevent further decline or the circle continuing into the next generation."
Nearby in Everton Park, Liverpool Council is transforming an underused concrete ampitheatre into the city's first-purpose-built children's learn-to-ride facility with a realistic road layout, junctions and crossings. The £330,000 scheme, funded by the council and British Cycling, aims to encourage more young people to cycle.
It's no quick fix, but when the council extends projects addressing young people and opportunity beyond their current focus on areas such as Walton Breck Road, it hopes the likes of Breck Road will see fortunes improve.
Crime, deprivation and derelict buildings are far from the full story of Breck Road. Like Kugathas, Julie has noticed a shift in recent months. She said: "It is bad, but I think it's cooled off. I mean, there are gangs of lads, but they look more fearsome than they are. If you approach them, they're sound with you."
The pubs are lively, people stop to chat on the street, and the Bait ul Lateef Ahmadiyya Mosque is building community relationships, including by screening the World Cup in a previously abandoned church where people fleeing religious persecution come to pray.
There's "a great little community on Breck Road", according to one woman, who said: "No matter how bad people say it is, I just feel safe."
A shopkeeper, who asked not to be named, said: "Breck Road has a reputation, 'It's this and that', but if it was, people wouldn't live here. You have to live here to know it."
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