Then take Lord Street. The tree-lined high parade purportedly inspired France’s Napoleon III, while living on Merseyside in exile during the 1830s, to rebuild Paris with wide boulevards.
Now, the glass awnings hanging over the shuttered shops exemplify the faded splendor of the city. They’ve not seen a window cleaner’s squeegee for many a season. The use of what should be a prime hotel as emergency accommodation for Britain’s asylum seeker backlog has further driven people toward Reform.
The town is, by many measures, far from the most deprived in the U.K. But the local MP, Labour’s Patrick Hurley, points out that residents frequently compare the Southport of today to the more prosperous and thriving one of their youth.
“We need to make sure we don’t just trade on our past, on our faded grandeur as a town. I’m very keen to ensure that the town’s best days lie ahead of it,” Hurley, in his customary flat cap, told POLITICO on a walk around the town. “But that can be done whilst paying homage and tipping the hat to the best of the past.”
One way the Labour government hopes to reverse the lack of pride in the place is with splashy regeneration and building projects. Diverting funding to repair and reopen Southport’s pier — which dates back to 1860 — was one of the marquee examples of the plan in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ spring spending review.
Hurley hopes that, combined with more arts and culture projects, it will help drive tourism numbers back up and will show there’s no need to “accept decline as inevitable” or to “live on the fumes of nostalgia,” which, he argues, “is all Nigel Farage is offering right now.”
