Council highlights funding boosts for range of schemes
develop a growing creative, digital and tech led district in Southport town centre, adding to other businesses already operating locally and looking to entice more.
The new HQ for IT specialists Techedia is due to be completed this year in a £1 million project, creating 75 new jobs.
The firm, which sponsors Southport FC, provides bespoke, cost-effective ICT support and software development to businesses across the UK.
Other Southport firms in the sector include: Immersive Interactive, on Princes Street, which creates interactive rooms and experiences all over the world; and Fallen Planet Studios, an independent development studio whose primary focus is the creation of immersive games and experiences for Virtual Reality (VR), which is based on Coronation Walk.
Southport’s new £1.5 million
Enterprise Arcade will create a high tech, collaborative and affordable workspace for small businesses.
The ambition is to diversify Southport’s economy, provide a greater number of skilled jobs, and create more opportunities to allow young people to stay in their home town.
The project will utilise upper floors which were previously occupied by the council, along as The Gallary cafe bar and grill and the former Friend Mobile shop on the ground floor.
The project is being made possible through £1.5 million funding from the Southport Town Deal.
In a report last year, Sefton Council executive director (place) Stephen Watson said: “Following the successful submission of Southport’s Town Investment Plan, under the government’s Town Deal funding, Southport has been allocated £37.5m for a range of projects.
“One of the projects agreed and allocated £1.5m of funding is The Enterprise Arcade.
“The Town Investment Plan set this out as the regeneration and transformation of Crown Buildings into Southport’s first flexible office space, designed to act as an incubator and flexible/ co-working space for start-up businesses with the purpose of nurturing the growth of the creative digital and technology led business base which already exists in the town but currently has no identifiable geographic focus.”
The centre is earmarked to replace the former Southport Theatre and Convention Centre which closed in March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic struck the UK.
The Marine Lake Events Centre is the central ambition of the Southport Town Deal Board, which secured £38.5m from
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak in the Budget in March last year to support the revitalisation of the seaside town.
Southport Town Deal Board allocated £30m of that sum to create a new Marine Lake Events Centre, while also allocating a further £3.3 million for a new water and light show in the Marine Lake.
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has pledged a further £20m towards the ambitious scheme, as Sefton continues to pursue additional funding.
The Marine Lake Events Centre and light show are estimated by Sefton Council to create 288 new jobs, attract footfall of over 515,000 visitors to the waterfront each year and boost Southport’s hotel and hospitality sector with nearly 60,000 overnight stays from conferences and events alone.