The borders of Lancashire County Council, created in 1889, coincided very closely with the ancient geographical ‘county of Lancashire’, first referred to in the reign of King Henry II in 1168. Within that County, Southport and Blackpool were independent County Boroughs, each managing its own affairs until 31st March 1974.
Since our town was first named ‘South-port’ in 1798, our traditional links had been with Lancashire, as were those of our neighbouring seaside resort. This had given us our then classic resort full of Victorian charm and elegance.
The administrative county of Merseyside was then spawned on the ‘thought-provoking’ date of April 1st 1974, with Southport being thrust unwillingly into the cobbled together ‘Metropolitan District of Sefton’ and Blackpool being absorbed into the administrative County of Lancashire.
Thereby began a 30 year decline of large parts of our town, together with massive increases in the amounts exacted upon all property owners. This naturally produced a festering sore of discontent amongst many townsfolk who wanted to once again be an independent part of traditional Lancashire. The first petition towards this aspiration recorded an impressive 22,000 signatures in favour and less than 1,000 against.
Blackpool regained its previous independent status in 1998 and now operates once again without any unjustifiable interference from other towns; Southport continues to suffer, with the desire of belonging to Lancashire never venturing far from the thoughts of most Southport residents, who still hunger for the true identity of the place they live.

The current absurd situation has created the following disputes:

Southport is on the Ribble estuary – we are akin to West Lancashire, not to the so-called ‘Merseyside’;
Southport’s very identity is being slowly eroded away and replaced with the term ‘North Sefton’;
Planning restrictions are being imposed on Southport because of its association with Bootle
Our services are dominated from towns with which we have nothing in common;
The majority of Sefton’s Councillors do not represent this town – they were neither elected here nor live here;
Many council jobs have been removed from Southport to increase employment opportunities in other towns;
The needs of our youngsters are not catered for as well as those in Bootle;
Street cleaning and maintenance are not carried out to a proper standard;
Sefton’s greed has given us an anti-visitor parking system;
Southport’s services are continually being cut back to subsidise the demands of other towns;
The result is constant bickering in an endless struggle for resources;
Southport simply does NOT ‘belong’ in Merseyside – we are not Seftonites, we are Lancastrians.