Sefton pursues Toad Hall demolition
The council wants to pull down the former hotel and nightclub as it steps up plans for nature-led regeneration in Ainsdale.
Sefton Council is working with lead advisor Ridge on the project, with documents lodged setting out the case for demolition.
Toad Hall is described there as a three-storey brick building, neighbouring a Green Sefton operational yard, a Pontins holiday park which closed in 2024, and a public car park.
The site sits just off Ainsdale beach, on the stretch of Shore Road between the sands and the heart of Ainsdale, close to the Ainsdale Sands Lake.
Originally constructed in the 1920s as part of the Ainsdale on Sea development, the building most notably served as a hotel and nightclub, with a later single-storey extension added to the rear left elevation.
The building is described as “currently vacant and has remained unoccupied for several years with extensive fire damage, storm damage and exposure to extreme coastal weather conditions. As a result of its deteriorated condition and following evidence of illegal entry, the site has been secured with timber hoarding to provide security and safety of the site and complex”.
Ridge’s summary, as set out in planning documentation, is that “Toad Hall has been deemed structurally unsafe and beyond viable restoration” with independent surveys confirming a “severe state of disrepair” in a building that has been unoccupied for more than a decade.
In recent years it has been covered by the ‘Ainsley & Dale’ artwork by Paul Curtis.
As to the site’s immediate future, the land will be levelled, graded and prepared for the construction of a new car park, said Ridge. This facility will be the subject of a separate planning application., potentially to come this autumn.
More expansive plans yet may be in store for the site and its neighbouring areas, though. The longer term vision could see the site play a part in Sefton’s Ainsdale-on-Sea Eco-Vision plan for nature-led regeneration, on which a report worked on by firms including Turley, WSP and SLR worked was published in September 2025.
This was followed up this summer with the announcement that heads of terms had been agreed with GSL Developments for the redevelopment of the Sands pub site.
Tamyln Stone, director of GSL, said that the firm would deliver a “first-class hospitality offer” at the site.
“We can now invest in the significant resources required to develop our designs, seek and secure planning approval, and to commence works at the earliest opportunity,” he said.
Documents relating to the Toad Hall demolition application can be seen on Sefton Council’s planning portal with the reference DC/2026/01680.
