The Southport Party can report that, over the years, numerous people have been rehoused in Council property but not always with happy results; for instance, Bootle people have been offered accommodation in Southport and Southport people in need of a place to live have been offered housing in Bootle or nearby areas.

As almost everyone has roots and a sense of belonging, this North and South mixing can, and does, create trauma. This is highlighted in the case of a young local family whose only offer of housing was in Bootle . They recently pleaded at The December Single Area Committee meeting to be rehoused where they were born and where both their friends and relations live.

This sounds reasonable to our Party and we wonder what the authority is up to with this redistribution of population from one township to another. Perhaps they are looking for balance - but at what cost to the people involved, their freedoms and jobs? There is, of course, a “natural sense of belonging”, as mentioned in the Local Government Commission's 1997 boundary review. Some cynics could ask the question: “is this manipulation?” - but it is hard to believe it is anything so sinister. Certainly a full explanation by the authority needs to be made to allay any such fears.

The ‘Seftonisation' of our town by stealth and the use of such terms as ‘North Sefton', when referring to Southport, by certain council mandarins, leaves many local residents feeling uncomfortable, further highlighting the ‘poles apart' situation that has dogged Sefton Council since this monolith was imposed upon us over 30 years ago. Traditional townships still yearn to be independent from this administration with its sausage-shaped geography so that they can run their own affairs, as they did for the hundred or so years before the bureaucratic feeding-frenzy started in 1974.