SOUTHPORT is booming.
Take a look around the town and you’ll see cranes dotted around the resort, new developments appearing on the skyline and an increasing number of visitors flooding into Chapel Street and Lord Street.
But now it’s been made official, with Southport’s success highlighted for all to see in a Tonight programme for ITV.
Sir Trevor McDonald looks at the town’s boost in an investigation entitled Tonight: the Death of the British Seaside?
Friday’s programme will show Southport as a busy resort which has benefited from huge amounts of investment, which other seaside towns are crying out for.
It seems we are leaving other coastal towns behind and Southport is finally showing the signs of a boom.
But step back in time to 10 years ago and it was a different story. Southport was in desperate need of regeneration. Thankfully people can now see the investment which has been ploughed into the town and the obvious difference the money has made.
Now it is up to others to follow. They not only need the money but the vision and strategy to make sure they have a future.
Southport has demonstrated its confidence to drive forward plans to become the classic resort it long promised. It has taken risks with new boutique hotels and stepped up the game.
It’s right Sir Trevor’s investigation praises the town for bucking the downward trend, we have a long way to go but surely this signals a sunnier future for UK resorts.
That’s not to say we don’t have our fair share of problems.
We are told by police crime in Southport is low compared to other areas of Merseyside, but that doesn’t make the acts of hooliganism this week any easier for the Lakeside Miniature Railway owner who has been forced to take drastic action against mindless arsonists.
Fire crews spent more than an hour tackling the blaze at the tourist attraction last Thursday and Dan Clark is planning to brick up the 96-year-old building where it happened.
Residents were also angered that more than a dozen saplings planted earlier this year on Lulworth Road were snapped in two.
Sefton will now have to find the extra funds to substitute the destroyed trees from taxpayers’ purses.
Watch the ITV1 programme on Friday, April 27 at 8pm.
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