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Template:GBdot Ellesmere Port is an industrial town in the district of Ellesmere Port and Neston, Cheshire, England, situated in the south of the Wirral Peninsula on the estuary of the River Mersey. The town was founded, as the name suggests, as an outlet to the sea from Ellesmere, Shropshire and the Wales border area around Llangollen (via a canal then called the Ellesmere Canal). The town has a population of 64,100.
The Manchester Ship Canal joins the Mersey estuary north-west of Ellesmere Port at Eastham, but the town is also the northern terminus of the Shropshire Union Canal (which used to exchange goods with sea-going boats at what is now the boat museum). There are a number of tourist attractions - the Boat Museum, the "Blue Planet" aquarium and the McArthur Glen Cheshire Oaks outlet village. The town is primarily industrial, being dominated by a Shell oil refinery and the old ICI chemical works, The town is also home to the Vauxhall Motors car manufacturing factory, noted for producing the Astra range of cars in the UK.
Ellesmere Port has a railway station with frequent electric trains to Liverpool and occasional trains to Helsby. It is also located at the interchange of the M56 and the M53.
Ellesmere Port was nearly included into the Merseyside borough of Wirral when that was formed in 1974. It was removed from the proposals before the Local Government Act 1972 had its first reading.
Famous people from the town include the British deputy prime minister John Prescott, the footballer Joe Mercer (who has a street named after him) and the singer Lee Latchford Evans.