BULLDOZERS have been hungrily destroying a popular Southport landmark this week.
The machines moved in on Wednesday to tear down the Lido building adjacent to Ainsdale Beach, and with it a concrete memorial to thousands of people’s happy memories from a multi-generation spanning 74 years.
Staff have also been saying goodbye to Southport Infirmary this week, with NHS workers who have been based there for many years now looking forward to new working environments at Southport and Formby DGH and Ormskirk Hospital.
There the difference ends. The end of the infirmary was, many will admit, inevitable. The building retains happy memories for many, though its passing will not be lamented by visitors to our resort.
The Lido however now adds its name to a growing list of monuments to Southport’s glorious seaside resort heritage which includes luminaries such as the former Palace / ABC Cinema on Lord Street, and the Sea Bathing Lake.
Worryingly, it seems few people in Ainsdale - not even the three ward councillors - were aware of the building’s impending demolition.
Despite suggested rescue plans over the past few years, none were successfully pursued and the structure was allowed to decay.
As Southport claims to be pursuing a ‘Classic Resort’ strategy, some may question whether buildings such as the cinema - the second oldest in the North of England - and the Lido should have been deemed expendable, or whether more should have been done to save, restore and preserve them.
Certainly, local people and their elected representatives should have been able to have had some say, or even prior warning, that such a notable local landmark as the Lido was about to be lost to Southport’s heritage forever.
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