Is Southport 'losing its beach'?

A Liberal Democrat councillor will ask whether the seaside town of Southport is "losing its beach" and risking its status as a tourist attraction.

John Pugh, Lib Dem opposition leader on Sefton Council, said he will submit a motion at a full council meeting later arguing that the ruling Labour group had left the beach to nature "by default and not by decision".

In a statement ahead of the meeting Mr Pugh, who served as the town's MP until 2017, said he believed policies of trying to preserve a leisure beach south of the pier had been "quietly dropped".

Sefton Council said it would reserve comment until after the meeting, but a spokesperson said the Sefton coastline had been subject to the natural process of accretion since the Victorian era.

Studies have shown the sand level in Southport has been rising over time, creating the conditions for the growth of vegetation.

Mr Pugh said: "Nature is being allowed to take her course and that could mean the total greening of the Southport foreshore or letting it become an inaccessible mudflat plain - good for birds but not for holidaymakers."

He said he wanted the local authority to "think through the consequences" of allowing the loss of "one of the few places families can have fun without spending money".

"It's a great shame as the attraction of a beach is that it's one of the few places families can have fun without spending much money," he added.

Mr Pugh is also asking for Sefton to clarify its stance on the funding of the pier's restoration which he characterised as "expecting the government to foot the entire bill".

"I think we ought by now to know whether that is a runner," he said.

"My view is that that is an unlikely outcome and it's time to get real."

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