Hi Citynbeach
I'm from the Wirral, Heswall is my home town, but I spent a fair part of my teenage years in Oxton and like most Wirral-squirrels I know the peninsula like the back of my hand.
Honestly? Oxton had a pretty bad reputation back in the late eighties / early nineties. As per Liverpool, many of the old Victorian villas had been split up into bedsits. It really was DSS land with a very bad underbelly, a lot of drug- dealing and a real Liverpool/ Woodchurch estate criminal overspill going on. I had an old boyfriend who lived there back in the day, and all kinds of crazy s* was going on - on his street. (Ian Astbury from The Cult lived up the road from him back then) But that said it always had a respectable middle class element too, my old art teacher also lived there with his family, and there were a few million pound villas, esp on Noctorum Hill, even then.
I go back now and I have to rub my eyes at times as its downright chi-chi these days, with all kinds of cake and coffee shops that you'd find in Didsbury or Dulwich. Most of the houses have been restored and turned back to single family dwellings or into better class one to two bed flats - and prices have gone through the roof. But that said it's still cheaper than the ritzier neighbourhoods of Liverpool or Manchester.
In terms of "the pull factor" - education is a big one. Wirral held on to its state grammar schools in the 1976 shakeup (I went to West Kirby) and that has always been a big attraction for young families. Plus the transport links - it has easy access to Manchester and Chester as well as Liverpool. However as others have pointed out - you are not a million miles away from the mean streets of north-end Birkenhead and the "Woody" (the Woodchurch estate - do NOT leave your car parked here under ANY circumstances, the Asda car park is the only safe spot for miles.)
But you have easy access to the many practical and decent shops in Birkenhead, including a decent Waterstones bookshop and a brilliant TK Maxx, and all kinds of local facilities and the properties are GORGEOUS. Also the countryside on the Wirral is really breathtaking, the sunsets over the River Dee will kill you. I appreciate it now as I live in west London and only go back to see my mum. We didn't give it a second thought growing up - (Royden Park was OUR playground as teenagers.)
If you want safety, low crime and middle class predictability - head for West Wirral; Heswall West Kirby, and Neston, but you will have to pay through the nose for it these days as prices have gone bonkers. But Oxton still has an edge to it - bigger, showier houses, and the facilities and transport links are way better
Wirral is still one of the UK's best kept secrets - long may it stay this way!
Hope this helps
C