Liverpool UK's 'most generous' city - fundraiser

Steve and Sue Herron were invited to re-open Spellow Lane library

Liverpool has topped the list of most generous cities in 2024 driven in large part by the response to the Southport attack, according to a crowdfunding website.

GoFundMe said the city topped a list of donations per capita, with London, Norwich, Manchester and Belfast completing the top five.

The deaths of Alice Da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, on 29 July was followed by riots in Southport and Liverpool which spread across the country.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds were raised to both support those affected by the stabbings and by the disorder that followed - including three separate pages for the families of each of the girls.

Spellow Community Hub and Library in Walton was gutted by fire during the chaos, and only re-opened in December after a massive fundraising drive.

An initial fundraising page in response to the violence raised £1.3m, while a fundraiser set up by 27-year-old Alex McCormick after the library was destroyed hit £250,000.

Alex McCormick started a fundraiser to raise £500 for "new books"

The list does not include the enormous fundraising drive which saved Liverpool children's hospice Zoe's Place from closure - as the £6.5m in donations was gathered through a different crowdfunding website, JustGiving.

Ms McCormick said that "as a Scouser" she was "not surprised" to see Liverpool top the list.

"I know we get a bad rep sometimes in the press, but I think if you live here or you have lived here, the people in this city generally will do anything for anyone," she said.

Ms McCormick said her initial target for her GoFundMe was £500 "to replace the books that had been burned", but it quickly became apparent that she would far exceed her target.

"We can't be burning books," she said.

"As a society we've got to be better than that."

At the re-opening ceremony last week a letter from the Queen was read which said the library's return demonstrated the power of "kindness in the face of adversity".

Across the M62 in Manchester, the well-known youth club Salford Lads Club was saved from closure when £270,000 was raised in six weeks, including donations from Morrissey and Graham Nash.

According to GoFundMe's 2024 Year in Help report, more than 65 million donations were made worldwide on its platform.

It said Cambridge, Worcester, Eastbourne, Newscastle-Upon-Tyne and Lincoln completed the top ten.