Green light expected for £73m Southport marine centre
Sefton Council planning officers have recommended councillors approve the Marine Lake Events Centre, which they estimate will attract 288,000 visitors a year.
The MLEC’s application will be voted on during Sefton Council’s planning committee meeting Thursday.
If approved, the £73m project will see the redevelopment of the Southport Theatre and Convention Centre site on Southport’s promenade. The centre will be replaced with a 103,000 sq ft event complex comprising a 2,400-capacity conference venue, a 1,200-seat theatre, offices, production facilities, ticket office, café, restaurant, meeting rooms, and a shop.
Kier is already lined up to build the venue, with a projected completion date of 2026.
One of the most exciting proposed features of the MLEC is the water and light show that would take place six times daily from 5pm to 10:30pm.
CBRE is the planning consultant for the MLEC project. Credit: via planning documents
Car access to the MLEC will be from the existing Promenade and Seabank Road roundabout junction. There will be 142 parking spaces for vehicles, including 15 designated accessible and 14 bays with electric vehicle charging points. There will also be 48 cycle spaces for visitors.
Planning consultant CBRE estimates that the MLEC will create 290 on-site and off-site operational jobs, helping stimulate the area’s economy.
The MLEC is designed by AFL Architects, who built upon original work by HOK. Gardiner & Theobald is the project manager and cost consultant for the scheme. Optimised Environments is the landscape architect.
The £73m MLEC project is funded in part by £33.3m from Sefton Council’s successful Town Deal bid and a £20m investment by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. Sefton Council is expecting to borrow the remaining funds.
Sefton Council will vote on granting planning permission for the project next week. Credit: via planning documents
In addition to AFL Architects, CBRE, and Gardiner & Theobald, the project team for MLEC includes civil engineer AECOM, venue consultant IPW, transport consultant WSP, noise and air quality expert Hydrock, and daylight and sunlight guru GIA.
Tetra Tech is the project’s aquatic ecology expert, while Carcius is charged with the same task on land. Tyler Grange is the arboricultural consultant.
Burro Happold is the waste management consultant and TEP is the visual impact assessor. Turley is assisting on community engagement. Also on the project team: Graeme Ives Heritage Planning, Cotswold Archaeology, Blue Sky Building.
If planning permission is secured for MLEC, ASM Global will operate the facility.
You can learn more about the plans for MLEC by searching application reference number DC/2022/01391 on the Sefton Council planning portal.
Somewhere else for the Mancs to go beside Blackpool.
By Anon
We’d happily welcome the Mancs and would honestly prefer to be part of their city region rather than being dragged into LCR.
By Anonymous
More low skill jobs! Disappointing.
By SteveO
Will LCRCA and DLUHC be able to reclaim their free public cash if/when this doesn’t meet the visitor numbers and GVA outputs that Sefton are claiming. A more imaginative strategy around digital and creative would have done a lot more for the town but probably less for egos. What a waste.
By Backwards looking
Just get on with it!
By Billy Bob
@backwards looking They’re trying to do something on Eastbank Street for that digital workhub type approach, and in terms of general business the Kew Business Park hasn’t been built out, which indicates not much in the way of wider/larger commercial interest in Southport. Good shout on creative parts as there appear to be fewer and fewer commercial backland sites or small industrial units that could accommodate wide variety of creative endeavours.
@Anonymous – you’re in the LCR and getting £20million from them to help deliver this.
By JohnMac
Great to hear hopefully 2026 is achievable
By David
Can we squeeze a Lido in there too 🙏
By Ann Karen denia
Let’s hope that the views of the sea and the lake are given access to the members of public, for example cafes and restaurants,their is nowhere in this town of Southport that gives us that simple pleasure, if not this venture once again like all the others will not succeed. I am a Southport resident of 64 years and have yet to see this simple vision appear.
By Anonymous