Southport Town Hall Gardens: Have Your Say by 5 October

The designs for the £10 million rebuild of Southport’s Town Hall Gardens are now public, and residents have until 5pm on Monday 5 October to comment on them (Sefton Council consultation portal).

This is the second and final round of public consultation before Sefton Council submits a planning application for the site between Lord Street and The Atkinson. The first round ran in late 2025. What is on show now is what the council intends to build.

A scale model, the drawings and a feedback form are on display at The Atkinson on Lord Street for a fortnight, and staff will be there to answer questions on two dates.

The dates you need

You can respond online through Your Sefton Your Say, by freephone on 0800 080 3263, by email to southport@devcomms.co.uk, or by post to Freepost DEVCOMMS.

One caution on the published material. The council’s news release says the consultation “begins today (Monday September 21st)” but is itself dated 18 September, and later says responses will be analysed “following the end of the consultation in September”. The consultation portal is the document to go by: it records the consultation as opening on 21 September and closing on 5 October 2026.

What is proposed

The council describes four connected character areas:

• The Performance Plaza, a flexible civic space for events through the year
• The Mega Ripples, a play space with water mist features, mounds and lighting
• Celebration Dunes, a celebratory garden with planting inspired by the coast
• The Botanical Garden, planting and seating spilling out from the Town Hall

The published key also lists an Eastbank Street footpath, “green edges” drawing people in from Lord Street, an open route giving access to the three heritage buildings, extensive seating, and controlled vehicle access for servicing (Sefton Council).

Council leader Cllr Marion Atkinson said the water features answer the strongest theme from the first round of consultation, and link back to the town’s Sea Bathing Lake and its history as a hydrotherapy resort. She said the Celebration Dunes are “a not-so-subtle nod to the stunning ecologically rich dunescapes of Birkdale and Ainsdale” (Sefton Council, 18 September 2026).

What is going, and what is staying

This is the part worth reading closely before you comment. The council’s own project page sets out what is under consideration for removal:

• the two vacant pavilion buildings, formerly a bar and a restaurant
• the storage unit, a listed former deck chair store next to the Town Hall
• the fountain installed in memory of Princess Diana in 1997, which the council says has significant maintenance costs and repeated technical faults

The council says a new fountain, or fountains, may form part of the new design, and that both King Charles III and Prince William have given the proposals their full support. The Town Hall, The Atkinson, Cambridge Arcade and Crown Buildings all stay. The council says the scheme will end with more trees on the site, not fewer (Sefton Council project page).

The same page says the gardens will double in size.

Who is paying for it

The £10 million is made up of three pledges:

The £2.5 million from elsewhere in the city region comes from Liverpool, St Helens, Knowsley, Halton and Wirral. The council states that the money was given for this project and cannot be spent elsewhere, which is its answer to residents who have asked why it is not going to Southport Pier instead.

Why the gardens

The project came from the families of Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice da Silva Aguiar and Bebe King. After the attack in July 2024, the space outside The Atkinson became the place where thousands of people gathered and left tributes, and the families approached Sefton Council and central government about creating a permanent thank you to the town.

Sefton Council is the landowner and the accountable body. The concept design is being led by KKA Ltd, a firm of architects; the council states that Elsie Stancombe’s uncle is an architect at KKA and personally designed the concept.

One timetable that no longer holds

The council’s project page still says detailed design and public consultation would take place “through the latter part of 2025”, with site works starting in 2026 and completion aimed for 2027. That page was last updated on 5 August 2025 and has not been revised since.

The current position, from the consultation now running, is different: responses close on 5 October, the design team then considers whether changes are needed, and a planning application follows. The council says any construction timetable remains subject to consultation feedback, planning approval, technical development and procurement. No start date has been published.

Sefton’s own Planning Committee will determine the application, and there will be a further round of standard public consultation at that stage.

What it means for you

• If you want to influence the design, comment before 5pm on 5 October. After that the next chance is the planning application, by which point the layout is largely fixed.
• If you want to see it properly, the model and drawings are at The Atkinson during opening hours until 5 October, and the project team is there on 25 and 30 September.
• If you use the gardens now, the pavilions, the storage unit and the Diana fountain are all under consideration for removal. Say so in the consultation if that matters to you.
• If you run an event in the gardens, note that no construction dates have been published, so nothing is yet known about when the space would close.
• If you are coming into town for the exhibition, our parking guide covers the Lord Street car parks, and the roadworks and travel page has what is closed this week.

Sources

• Sefton Council consultation, Southport Town Hall Gardens (opened 21 September 2026, closes 5 October 2026)
• Sefton Council news release, 18 September 2026
• Sefton Council, Town Hall Gardens regeneration project page (last updated 5 August 2025)