Southport needs to transform shops into homes, warns former MP

Fears that Southport may be missing a trick when it come to dealing with town centre blight have been expressed by Cllr John Pugh , opposition leader on Sefton Council.

“Many Councils, eligible for government Town Deal funding have already bid for and got money to purchase and re-purpose retail properties including old Debenhams buildings.

“Ipswich for example has been given £1M to purchase a Debenhams building, (2) It will probably be desirable for Sefton to do something similar.

“However, when I proposed the Council used its recently founded Housing Company (Sandway Homes) to buy up and convert empty retail eyesores in the centre of town, the ruling party voted it down. ”

“That’s a great pity as Sefton with it own Housing Company is in a good position to use government funding for shop conversion. Sefton preferring more speculative projects like another Market re-launch may not be the best use of what money we are given.

“I hope there will be a re-think as we are weeks away from submitting a major bid for substantial amounts of government cash. We need the involvement of the Council’s Housing Company in town centre re-generation because of their expertise in site and lease acquisition.

“The easy bit we can all do is spotting what needs to happen; the hard bit is to work out how to do it. For that we need professional expertise.”