We have an urgent need for quality accommodation
SOUTHPORT is in urgent need of more, good quality hotel rooms and investment in creating them is needed urgently if our town is to grow and thrive.
There are many reasons why we need to see them, linked to both opportunity and need.
Last month, Liverpool Business News reported that Liverpool hotels have just enjoyed their best start to the year for six years.
According to data from Liverpool City Council, more than 137,000 rooms were sold in the city in January, 15,000 more than the same month in 2023.
If the trend continues to the end of the year it could see two million hotel rooms sold in Liverpool for the first time since 2018.
There are currently 7,550 hotel rooms in Liverpool city centre, around half of which have been created since the city was European Capital of Culture in 2008, with many more in the pipeline.
As the major tourist resort within the Liverpool City Region, Southport is well placed to maximise the opportunities created by the growing boom in visitor numbers to the area.
At the same time, while there is opportunity, there is also threat –Southport cannot afford to be left behind by Liverpool. We have to fight for our share of the market.
There are many reasons why more visitors will come to Southport.
Last month demolition work began on the former Southport Theatre and Convention Centre, paving the way for the creation of the new £75 million Marine Lake Events Centre plus the adjacent water and light show.
The new MLEC is forecast to bring in an additional 515,000 visitors a year for events, conferences, shows and more. They will add to the nine million visitors a year Southport sees elsewhere.
Families come to enjoy major events such as the Southport Flower Show, Southport Air Show, Southport Comedy Festival, Southport Food and Drink Festival and others.
Nearby, we have the four-day Grand National race taking place in Sefton.
They come to enjoy attractions which continue to invest and improve, such as Southport Pleasureland, Silcock’s Funland and Carousel,
The Atkinson, Southport Splash World and more.
People from around the world are already booking to come and watch the 154th Open Golf championship at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport from July 12-19, 2026.
At the heart of ‘England’s golf coast’, Southport hosts golfers from a global base who come expecting a decent experience.
Quality accommodation is available at locations such as The Bold Hotel, the Lord Street Hotel, The Vincent Hotel and more. But more is needed – much more.
The Waterfront Hotel (formerly Bliss Hotel) remains in administration and seeking a buyer with its future uncertain.
At the budget end of the market, Pontins holiday park in Ainsdale closed earlier this year with questions being asked over what will happen at Ainsdale seafront.
Some new hotel rooms are coming. The Garrick on Lord Street will offer 137 new hotel rooms; Cove Resort Southport on the Esplanade will provide 200 more.
But it is a drop in the ocean compared to what we are seeing being built in Liverpool. It follows a Sefton Council council study which revealed “a need for a significantly increased supply of hotel bed spaces in Southport”.
In a Sefton Council Cabinet report in 2021, Sefton Council Executive Director of Corporate Resources and Customer Services Stephan Van Arendsen said: “The council’s Tourism and Regeneration teams recently commissioned a Hotel and Visitor Accommodation Study which identified a need for a greater range of visitor accommodation types and a need for a significantly increased supply of hotel bed spaces, particularly in Southport.”
The race is on. When the new Marine Lake Events Centre opens in 2026, the same year The Open takes place at Royal Birkdale, millions of visitors will be anticipating – and demanding – top quality places to come and stay in Southport. We must be ready.
We have to be able to provide memorable experiences to encourage them to return again. Supporting investment in top quality accommodation in Southport has never been so urgently needed as it is now.