Why not join us?
SOME inspired ideas on how to make Southport a better place emerged from the ‘100 Ideas For The North’ workshop recently.
The session was led by Tris Brown and Patrick Hurley, who have been touring towns and cities across the north of England as they crowd-source and discover what local people think ahead of the compilation and publication of their forthcoming 100 Ideas book. It is a brilliant concept.
When it is published it will hopefully empower communities across the North to come across schemes and concepts working well in other parts of the country, with the hope that best practise will spread. It has also been great at starting conversations within local communities.
Southport Bijou Cinema, where this workshop was held, was very well-attended, a very healthy sign of the willingness of Sandgrounders to make change happen and to come up with positive new initiatives. There were lots of ideas put forward.
Very few of them required extensive funding or government intervention, and most were non-profit. All of them required the community to come together and support one another.
Tris and Patrick sought one main ‘Southport idea’ to take forward for their publication. Not happening, said the assembled crowd. There were too many good ideas to leave out.
There began to emerge the start of a consensus for three ‘Southport ideas’, although agreement was not universal:
1. Temporary town twinning. The concept of Southport exchanging ideas and learning more about other areas - Stockport was mentioned as a possibility - both within the North West, but also other areas within the UK. The other towns involved would change every few months.
2. Inter-generational skills sharing. There were various contributions to this. It was felt that there needed to be ‘free university’ opportunities for young people.
Older people could come and provide their knowledge, training and skills at a Southport location. In return, younger people could offer their expertise on things such as modern technology and social media. The system would help to tackle social isolation which has been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, as well as bringing different generations together.
3. Dog friendly creches. Southport is a very dog friendly town! There are over 4,000 members of the Southport Dog Friendly Facebook Group.
There is a dog friendly cafe, Barklays, in Churchtown. Calls were made for a dog friendly creche in Southport, where people can leave their pets. Also asked for were more public spaces where dogs could be walked and allowed off their leads.
There were other excellent ideas put forward too, some of them around a common theme.
In our Stand Up For Southport Facebook group, several people highlighted possibly the biggest issue facing Southport - transport.
It is currently impossible to enjoy direct rail travel to our closest city, Preston.
Or our nearest university, Edge Hill in Ormskirk. And it is a struggle to travel by rail to Manchester, with the service unreliable, too long and now lacking in direct links to stations such as Piccadilly and Deansgate.
Other ideas were raised about creating more opportunities for young people in Southport. People wanted to see more done to make young people feel safer in Southport. Other ideas included:
4. A women’s drop-in centre. A plea for somewhere in Southport that supports women of domestic violence in a similar way to the Swan Centre in Litherland.
5. Safe cafes - Places where police women in plain clothes can chat informally with women who are victims of domestic violence.
6. 100,000 trees - A call for Southport to become a greener place with the planting of hundreds of new trees.
7. Community garden - A place where people can grow their own fruit and vegetables, which is also educational. It would allow gardeners to pass on their skills to young people.
8. Play equipment community enterprise A social enterprise which creates play equipment for local playgrounds, in order to improve parks across the town and make play more available for children.
9. More spaces for young people - Head Space in Bolton was mentioned as a space where young people can meet up, with a cafe, a bar, live music, games, and more, with reasonable prices. Somewhere similar in Southport could act as a safe space for all.
10. Cycling hub - Somewhere that provides cycling proficiency training and tests. Would also offer the repair of bicycles, and training in bicycle maintenance.
11. Devolution - A constitutional question. Calls for more devolution and more decision making to be made locally, on issues such as climate change.
12. Southport Angels - The Pride Angels patrol the Gay Village in Manchester, keeping people safe and ensuring they feel secure. A Southport Angels scheme would do the same here.
13. Open up closed shops - Conversations could take place with landlords to convert empty retail units into pop-up spaces used for art and other workshops. They would also include community screens or boards with community information, such as forthcoming events. Sefton Council should be given powers to order the opening up of vacant units for community use. This would help to stimulate the high street.
14. Mobile community library - This would be stocked with leaflets letting people know what is happening in their community, along with books, and anything else needed locally.
15. Community newspaper - Towns across the UK have seen the closures of hundreds of newspapers and websites in recent years, a trend accelerated by the pandemic. In the past five years Southport has lost Champion Newspapers including the free Southport Champion newspaper, the free Midweek Visiter newspaper and the Southport Visiter website.
Many people, especially elder generations who previously relied on their local news and information from free newspapers, have become more isolated and disconnected from their home town as a result. A government or council funded community newspaper would restore connections within the community.
Tris Brown and Patrick Hurley said: “100 Ideas For The North is part of a calendar of activity we’ve been undertaking across the north of England over the last 12 months to co-create 100 new social innovation ideas that can be replicated and implemented in our towns and communities in the north.
“We invited people from across Southport with an interest in making their communities better to come along, share their ideas, and contribute to the ultimate aim of the project, which is to collate and publish the 100 best ideas in a book later this year.
“Earlier this year, we decided to start this project asking communities to co-create a list of those transformational projects which would help make a difference where we live. Projects should be small enough to be local, big enough to make a difference, and agile enough to be copied in other places.
“We have been blown away by the response wherever we go.”
STAND Up For Southport is a grassroots community campaign set up by Andrew Brown and
Phil Gee, both proud residents who want to create a positive voice for our town.
We have set up a Stand Up For Southport Facebook group and welcomed nearly 5,000 members in just a few weeks.
We are amazed to see the stunning images and positive posts people share with us.
We have also launched a #StandUpForSouthport tag which is being widely used on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere.
Why not get involved? Join us and Stand Up For Southport.
Please join our Facebook group, and use it to post your great pictures of our town and let us know why you love Southport.
We would love to know what you think. Please use our hashtag on social media.
To contact either of us, either message us via Facebook or email either: mediaandrew brown@gmail.com or Phil@agencyofboom.