Southport

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Template:Infobox England place

For other uses, see Southport (disambiguation).

Southport is a seaside town on the north-west coast of England, to the north of Liverpool and the south-west of Preston. Historically part of Lancashire, it is today part of the borough of Sefton on Merseyside.

Southport has a population of around 100,000 people with approximately 40% of the population over 55 years old and around 55% defined as social class ABC1.

Southport has many tourist attractions including the longest overland pier in Great Britain. A restoration project worth over £7m has helped bring the pier up to date with improved access, lighting and a pier train.

History

Southport, in its present form, was founded by William Sutton (The Mad Duke) in 1792. However, there have been settlements in the area for much longer than that: the northern part of the town around St Cuthbert's church (in the part of the parish of North Meols now known as Churchtown), was mentioned in the Domesday Book, and some areas of the town have names of Viking origin. [2]

Southport grew quickly in the 19th century as it gained a reputation for being a more refined seaside resort than its neighbour-up-the-coast Blackpool. Southport is a busy and friendly resort, with a number of activities for children, although its permanent funfair, Pleasureland closed in late 2006 (see below).

Southport's suburbs are built around, and still named after, the old villages of the area. From North to South, the districts are: Crossens, Marshside, Churchtown, Blowick, Birkdale, Ainsdale, and Woodvale; home to RAF Woodvale [3]. The town of Formby is south of Southport, with Hightown and Liverpool further southward, along the A565.

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte lived in exile on Lord Street, the main thoroughfare of Southport, between 1846 and 1848, before returning to France, where he became President and subsequently Emperor of the French. During his reign, he caused much of the medieval centre of Paris to be replaced with broad tree lined boulevards, covered walkways and arcades, just like Lord Street. On the strength of this coincidence, it has been suggested that the redevelopment may have been inspired by memories of Southport's town centre [4].

On the night of the 9th December 1886, the worst Lifeboat disaster in the history of the UK occurred off the shores of Southport. A cargo ship called the Mexico was on its way to South America when it found itself in difficulty. Lifeboats from Lytham, St. Anne’s and Southport set off in order to try and rescue those aboard the vessel. The crews battled against storm force winds as they rowed towards the casualty. The entire crew from the St. Anne’s boat was lost and all but two of the Southport crew were too. 28 Lifeboat men lost their lives on that night and left many widows, and father-less children.

In 1925, the RNLI abandoned the station at Southport and left the town with no lifeboat.

However in the late 1980s, after a series of unfortunate tragedies, local families from Southport started to raise funds and eventually bought a new lifeboatfor the town stationed at the old RNLI boathouse. The lifeboat is 100% independent from the RNLI so receives no money from them at all. Instead it relies completely on donations by the public.

Southport is also home to one of the UK's first online-only newspapers, the Southport Reporter, launched in 2000.

Southport also hosts a 24-hour yacht race, organised annually by the West Lancs Yacht Club. The race is the UK's No.1 dinghy endurance race and is run non-stop around the town's Marine Lake. In 2006, the event marked its 40th anniversary. Click link to see a film all about the race.

Attractions

One of Southport's main attractions for many years was Pleasureland, a fairground established in 1912. It was owned by the Thompson Family, and was closed in September 2006. An earlier permanent funfair, Peter Pan's Playground closed in the 1980s and is now the site of part of the Ocean Plaza shopping development.

The Model Railway Village [5] is situated in Kings Gardens opposite the Royal Clifton Hotel and near the Marine Lake Bridge. The Model Railway Village opened in May 1996 and was created by Ray and Jean Jones. The Jones family still run the attraction today. The Model Railway Village season extends from April to the end of October. However due to popular demand the season has extended into weekend openings during November, February and March, weather permitting.

Other major attractions in Southport include Splash World [6], an indoor water park situated on the back of the Dunes swimming pool (expected to open early 2007).

Local government and politics

Politically, Southport is a stronghold of the Liberal Democrats with the Conservative Party also strong in some areas. John Pugh is Southport's current Member of Parliament [7]

Southport is within the historic boundaries of Lancashire, and was incorporated as municipal borough in 1866. It became a county borough independent of the Lancashire authorities in 1915, having reached the minimum 50,000 population (the 1911 census gave a figure of 51,643). The Birkdale urban district, including the parishes of Birkdale and Ainsdale was added to Southport in 1912.

Under the 1971 Local Government White Paper, presented in February 1971, Southport would have lost its county borough status, becoming a non-metropolitan district within Lancashire. Rather than accept this fate and and lose its separate education and social services departments, Southport Corporation lobbied for inclusion in the nearby planned metropolitan county of Merseyside, to join with Bootle and other units to form a district with the 250,000 required population. It was duly included in the metropolitan borough of Sefton [1]

This decision has been regretted by some of the population. A recurring local political issue has been the cross-party movement campaigning for Southport to leave Sefton and form its own unitary authority, perhaps adjoined to the neighbouring West Lancashire authority. Support for this has been seen amongst Liberal Democrat (UK) [8] councillors and within the Southport Conservative Party (UK) [9], [10].

In 1980, a Private Member's Bill proposed restoring Southport to Lancashire, and renaming the residue of Sefton to the Metropolitan Borough of Bootle. The Local Government Boundary Commission for England conducted a review of the area in 1987, which attracted 10,000 messages, of which "70% were pro forma". In 1990 the LGBC made suggestions that Southport, Ainsdale and Birkdale should be made a district of Lancashire: the final recommendations in 1991 "concluded that public opinion was more evenly divided than initially thought", and also that eastward transport links with Lancashire were poor compared to those southward to the Liverpool area.

The government again directed the Local Government Commission for England to make a review in December 1996 (after it had finished the work on the creation of unitary authorities), commencing in January 1997. This review was constrained by the legal inability of the commission to recommend that the current Sefton-West Lancashire border be altered. In a MORI poll conducted at the behest of the LGCE, 65% of Southport residents supported the campaign, compared to 37% in the borough as a whole. Local MPs Matthew Banks and Ronnie Fearn (MPs for Southport at various times) supported making Southport a unitary authority, with Banks wishing to see it tied to Lancashire ceremonially, but Fearn wishing to see it remain, as a separate borough, in Merseyside.

The commission noted that Southport would have a relatively low population for a unitary authority, even including Formby (89,300 or 114,700), and that it was worried about the viability of a south Sefton authority without Southport, and therefore recommended the status quo be kept. However, the commission suggested the use of area committees for the various parts of the borough and also that Southport could become a civil parish. [2] Another request made in 2004 was turned down, the Electoral Commission (United Kingdom) must request such a review).

In 2002, a local independent party calling themselves the Southport Party was established, with policy of "Southport out of Sefton". Three council seats were won in the 2002 local elections, but the following year there were no gains and a drop in the number of votes for the party.

To date, there have been no further moves to change Sefton's boundaries, but the Boundary Commission indicated in 2004 that a future review is possible:

"whether or not structural change takes place in accordance with our recommendations, the boundaries between or within Sefton and West Lancashire could be reviewed at a later stage to address these long-standing boundary concerns."[11]

Economy

Tourism still plays a large part of the economic make-up of Southport but its reputation of being a nice place to live brings in wealthy families commuting to Liverpool, Preston, Manchester and further afield. Its location, reputation and range of expensive houses also brings in a variety of footballers from local teams.

As a seaside resort, its main attractions are the miles of sandy beaches and recently restored seafront, a Victorian pier (the first pier built purely for pleasure in Britain), six golf courses and the wide boulevard, Lord Street, in the town centre. Its shopping, restaurants and bars are worth a visit. The town also has the Southport Theatre and Floral Hall.

Southport also hosts varied events including an annual air show[3] and flower show, an open air classical music concert concluded with a fireworks display, a jazz festival, and the turning on of the pleasant town centre Christmas lights. On July 12th every year, there is an Orangemen's March, which is one of the busiest days of the year. Southport hosts the annual musical fireworks championships, and The Open Championship at the Royal Birkdale Golf Club course. It is also home to the "Southport Weekender" [12], an annual dance event.

Scouting in Southport

The scouting district of Southport has always been an active one, currently there are approximately 700 members in the Southport area.

Southport scouts engage in several different town events such as the Carnival and have also started to do a bi-annual Scout and Guide Gang Show. The recent one was such a success that they have decided to continue with the tradition after a 4 year hiatus.

The Southport District Scout Headquarters is Waterside Lodge which is situated next to the Marine Lake. The scouts in this district and many nearby scout districts use Waterside for activities such as canoeing, kayaking, sailing, Bell Boating and Dragon Boating and various land activities.

Transport

Road

Newly-opened Marine Way Bridge, running from the town centre to the beach [1]

Due to its position by the coast, Southport is a linear settlement and as such can only be approached in a limited number of directions by road.

The main roads entering Southport are:

There is no direct connection to the motorway from Southport; the nearest connections are:

  • from the south - junction 3 of the M58 (on the A570, twelve miles)
  • from the north - junction 1 of the M65 (on the A582/A59, nineteen miles)

An east-west bypass for the A570 at Ormskirk is planned [13] to relieve congestion on Southport's main access route to the motorway network.

Several areas within Southport town centre have recently undergone major road redevelopment; the largest scheme was the construction of the Marine Way bridge (opened May 2004), which connects the Lord Street shopping district with the new seafront developments. The 50m high structure is thought to have cost in the region of £5m. [14]

Aviation

Southport is home to RAF Woodvale, a small RAF station on the outskirts of the town. It is used by RAF light aircraft as well as civilian aircraft. The station is also home to Merseyside Police's helicopter, known as 'Mike One-One'.

Southport is also home to Birkdale Sands, a sand runway located on one of Southport's beaches.

Rail

Southport has a railway station with a frequent service of electric trains to Liverpool and a regular service to Wigan, Bolton, Manchester and Rochdale.

The Liverpool line was originally built by the Liverpool, Crosby and Southport Railway in 1848. It was followed on 9 April 1855 by the Manchester and Southport Railway with a line to Manchester via Wigan.

Formerly, Southport was also served by two further railway lines:

In July 1897 both the West Lancashire and the Liverpool, Southport and Preston Junction Railways were absorbed into the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&Y). The L&Y had a large terminus at Southport Chapel Street and could see no sense in operating two termini at very close proximity. On 1.5.1901 the L&Y completed a remodeling of the approach lines to Central to allow trains to divert onto the Manchester to Southport line and into Southport Chapel Street Station. Southport Central was closed to passengers and it became a goods depot eventually amalgamating with Chapel Street depot. It survived intact well into the 1970s.

Sport

Southport is somewhat lesser known for its sporting prowess, but being surrounded by other North-West cities this is understandable. The eastern side of town towards Blowick and Kew is home to the "Sandgrounders" - Southport FC, a club with a long football league history and occasional FA Cup giantkillers, they play at Haig Avenue and currently find themselves in the Nationwide Conference League. There is also a league for local amateur football teams. Southport is also home to a rugby union club, Southport RUFC [16], who play at the Recreational Ground on Waterloo Road, Hillside.

The junior section of Southport RUFC are known as the Southport Sharks [17] and have sides that range from 7 years old upwards. They also play on the same grounds, and train every Sunday 10am-12pm.

Watersports on Marine Lake

However, the town is probably best known for golf; the Royal Birkdale Golf Club situated in the dunes to the south of the town is one of the venues on The Open Championship rotation and has hosted two Ryder Cups. Nearby Southport and Ainsdale Golf Club is also a two time Ryder Cup venue and Hillside Golf Club hosts many major events as well as being a final open qualifying course. Many smaller links courses also surround the town.

Southport's location by the coast also lends itself to some more specialised sporting activities - Ainsdale Beach south of the town is popular for kite sports, including kite-surfing. The Marine Lake [18] lies nestled between the town centre and the sea and is used for a variety of water-sports including water-skiing, sailing and rowing. The lake is home to the West Lancashire Yacht Club and Southport Sailing Club, both of which organise dinghy racing. The annual Southport 24 Hour Race, run by the WLYC, is an endurance race of national standing, with an average turnout of 60 to 80 boats.

The flat and scenic route alongside the beach is very popular with cyclists, and is the start of the Trans Pennine Trail, a cycle route running across the north of the country to Selby in North Yorkshire, through Hull and on to Hornsea on the east coast.

Famous Residents (past and present)

File:Red Rum Statue in Southport.JPG
Statue of Red Rum in Wayfairer's Arcade off Lord Street, Southport

References

  1. ^ Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). House of Commons. 6 July, 1972. col. 878. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ Final Recommendations on the Future Local Government of Sefton, Local Government Commission for England, November 1997
  3. ^ "Southport Air Show Official". Sefton Council. Retrieved 2006-08-01.
Sculler on Marine Lake

Community

Tourism and Events

Sport

Politics and Campaign Groups

Education

Local News Media

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