Southport's Green Journey

Southport sits on one of the most significant stretches of coastline in the North West. Dunes, pinewoods, saltmarsh and estuary — much of it protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area.

Most of us walk past that fact every day. It's the view from the pier, the dog walk at Ainsdale, the place we take visitors when we want to show off. But it isn't only scenery. Increasingly it's understood — by government, by the NHS, by our own council — as central to this town's health, its wellbeing and its future.

We think that's worth talking about honestly: what Southport already has, what's being planned, and what still needs doing.

The Liverpool City Region launched its first Local Nature Recovery Strategy on 20 March 2026. It sets out 36 priorities for restoring nature across the region, developed with Sefton and the other local authorities. What makes it different from a conservation plan is how much of it is about people: improving access to nature and reducing the inequality in who gets to benefit from it; supporting mental wellbeing and physical activity through parks and green corridors; cooling neighbourhoods with trees; reducing the health impact of flooding and heat through wetlands and natural flood management.

For a coastal town, several of those land very close to home — restoring the coastal habitats that buffer flooding and erosion naturally, improving the water quality that decides how confident people feel about using our own sea, and connecting neighbourhood green space to the coast so that nature recovery also means everyday walking and everyday company.

The strategy is explicit that this only works if it's community-led. That's the bit we intend to hold everyone to, including ourselves.

Sefton Council published its Ainsdale-on-Sea EcoVision in August 2025 — a vision for nature-led regeneration of the Ainsdale coastal gateway, covering Shore Road, Sands Lake and the promenade. Seven objectives, including accessible and inclusive green space, better interpretation of the coast, volunteering and skills, and explicit recognition of what contact with nature does for physical and mental health.

We want to be straight about what that document is. It's a statement of ambition, not a funded delivery plan — no costings, no timetable. The one concrete step so far has been early-stage terms with a private developer to bring the former Sands pub back into use as visitor accommodation. Ambition matters, and we're glad it exists. But ambition isn't delivery, and Southport has been promised things before. It is up to the community, private and public sector to work together to achieve the vision. 

We're not the council and we're not a conservation body. What a small local organisation can do is turn a strategy into a Tuesday morning that someone actually turns up to.

That means gathering first and greening second — a lunch, a workshop, a walk on the beach — because the people who most need time outdoors are rarely the people who sign up for something called a climate event.

It also increasingly means working alongside the health system rather than beside it. Our conversations with Brighter Living Partnership's social prescribing team and with Natural England's green social prescribing work are about making sure time in nature isn't only a nice idea, but something the people supporting someone's health can actually point them towards. We're developing two new programmes in this space — Earth Circles and Earth Walks — for people living with stress, loneliness or grief. Both are in development. When they open, they'll be announced here and in our newsletter first.

And the honest part. Southport's green journey is genuinely being written right now — by the council, by Natural England, by the Combined Authority, and by community groups like ours. But a vision with no costings is not yet a plan. A strategy with 36 priorities needs someone local making sure Southport's share of them actually happens. And access to nature in this town is still uneven: the people with the least green space nearby, the least confidence outdoors, and the most to gain are consistently the people least likely to be asked.

We'd rather say that plainly than pretend the work is done.