There are big plans for the future of Southport, with redeveloping the Southport Theatre and Convention Centre into a new and modern Marine Lake Events Centre, but this isn’t doing enough to help local businesses today. The town centre is struggling for shops, with business rates making life difficult for even big chain brands like Wetherspoons. Local businesses need to band together and start bringing back shoppers to Southport.
Advertise Together, Advertise The Town
The town provides its visitors with many different experiences, but retail is always high on the list. Lord Street and the roads running off it are home to a diverse collection of brands and boutiques that offer something many towns can’t, drawing in day trippers from nearby and tourists who spend a few days enjoying some retail therapy as well as locals.
Businesses can band together, such as in the Northern Quarter and the new Southport Market, and advertise themselves in nearby cities and large towns, and even on the outskirts of Southport itself. Billboard advertising, outdoor advertising, and even underground advertising in London can all be used to bring visitors in from far and wide. Monster Outdoor can help get brands and businesses seen across the country using all these methods, with regional and national campaigns attainable for small business budgets.
The Town Is A Brand
You can go as far back as when the town was covered in tramlines and the tide came up to the promenade and find the town marketing itself as a destination for retail, relaxation, and a unique experience. The town is often called continental, and if some local legends are to be believed it is the other way around.
The town’s history, architecture, and classical charms are its strengths and not its weaknesses. Attempts to become something new have always failed in the face of Southport’s singular shopping experience and fun days out at a traditional seaside. The unique history of the town should be embraced and made a part of its brand. This image already exists in the minds of Southport’s many fans across the country and should be built upon to increase the fan base.
Yesterday, Today, And Tomorrow
There are always big plans for Southport, and we have seen them come and have seen them go. Many in the town are old enough to remember the red skeleton of iron that sat at the south end of Lord Street. The long-promised Winter Gardens Shopping Complex was a blot on the landscape until it was eventually torn down and became what is now Morrisons.
It is hard to bank on big plans for the future at the Marine Lake when one of the town’s oldest and most important attractions, Southport Pier, is being left to rot once again. The campaign to regenerate the pier and what is now the Ocean Plaza began in the mid-90s, with some Southport residents ‘buying’ wood planks to help get the project off the ground. Now that wood has been left unmaintained the pier is closed permanently, just like Southport Theatre.
If there is one thing that the town’s recent history shows, stretching back to the last time the pier was saved, it is that the people of Southport can band together and fix what is broken in the town and protect what works. It may be time to roll up our sleeves once again and put Southport back on the map.
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