This is an urgent message to all who love Southport and care about heritage and beauty.  

Sefton Council’s plan is to completely raze our historic and beloved Town Hall Gardens to the ground. 

If you haven’t heard about this plan, you’re not alone because hardly anyone has. This job was never even up for tender. It has now been railroaded through a mystery process without proper public consultation. 

The plans include the irreversible removal of the peripheral, curved balustrades and Roman columns, two pavilions (commissioned by Sefton Council and paid for by you) the Diana Memorial fountain, all the mature trees and the existing planting.

The magnificent, Thomas Mawson, cast-iron columns and globes are also set to be demolished. These lamps run the length of Lord Street and grace all our heritage features including the Monument to our war dead and the Venetian Bridge spanning the Marine Lake. 

This is architectural, civic and cultural vandalism.

Southport is one of the finest, remaining Victorian seaside towns in England, renowned for its magnificent boulevard, wrought-iron-and-glass canopies and Victorian splendour.

The proposed change is to make the area in front of our Civic Buildings on our high street, by their own admission, a ‘world-class event space’. This effectively exploits the kind and generous intentions of the families in whose name these widely-unapproved changes will be made.

The radical alterations to the beauty and coherence of our splendid town must have the widespread support of the people for this gift to be fully appreciated. 

To destroy what is an existing memorial and an integral part of our high street, forever scarring its character, demands a thorough and proper, public consultation process.

That is what we are urgently calling for.

The planning application is imminent. Time is up at the end of October 2026.

Please act. 💪🏻