Inside the fight against plan to bring Children's A&E back to Southport
Politicians in Lancashire are making moves to stop the £33m plan
Hello and welcome to midweek edition of The Southport Lead.
In March, the decision to move Children’s A&E from Ormskirk to Southport was confirmed in news which was welcomed after 20 years with the town having no such facility. But, we warned, Ormskirk’s loss was never going to be accepted easily in Lancashire and the fightback is well under way.
Today’s edition looks at an early move to challenge the decision as Health Secretary Wes Streeting faces calls to overturn it amid complaints over both the decision and the process through which it was reached.
Southport briefing
📚 Plans have been submitted to convert the historic former Broadhurst’s bookshop in Southport town centre into a 8-bedroom HMO (House in Multiple Occupation). The first, second and third floors of the Market Street building would be turned into housing while the ground floor would be retained for commercial use. Broadhurst’s was one of Southport’s oldest businesses, having traded since it was opened by Charles Kenyon Broadhurst in 1920, until its sudden closure two years ago. Broadhurst’s bookshop was owned by Laurie Hardman, who tragically died in 2024 after 55 years in post. The application states: “The proposal seeks to bring vacant and underutilised upper floors back into productive residential use while maintaining the vitality and viability of the town centre [...] While the proposal is not an affordable housing scheme, HMOs form an important part of the housing mix by providing lower-cost shared accommodation. This assists in meeting housing needs across different income groups.”
🚓 Three suspected drug dealers were arrested after a police raid on Lathom Road. A large police presence was involved in the operation last Wednesday and officers seized cash, mobiles phones and what was described as a "significant quantity” of cannabis. Three men were arrested at the scene, including a 31‑year‑old man on suspicion of possession of a firearm, being concerned in the supply of Class B drugs, possession of a controlled Class A drug and false imprisonment. Two men, aged 35 and 26 and also from Southport, were arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of Class B drugs. Detective Inspector Sam Davies said: “These latest arrests is a proactive approach to tackling drug dealing to keep our streets safe. This is an on-going disruption to target criminals involved in serious and organised crime in the area which is a blight to our communities. Serious organised crime gangs are closely linked to serious violence, involving firearm and knife crime, and they have no thought for anyone other than themselves and greed. Stop searches, warrants, land searches and arrests take place all year round, and in many instances it is thanks to the public who tell us where there are issues in the community. If you have information on drug dealing and criminality in your area let us know and we will take action.”
🥧 Greggs is refusing to publicly confirm its plans to re-open in Southport - despite submitting a planning application for a Chapel Street site and being part-way through transforming the site. The bakery chain plans to open in the former H&M shop on Chapel Street and has submitted plans requesting permission to install new signage on the shopfront. But while its application makes clear Greggs plans to open the shop by repeatedly naming the business and including sketches, it is publicly refusing to say when it plans to open or even acknowledge it is doing so. A spokesperson said: “Greggs is always looking into new shop locations. While we are unable to confirm anything at the moment, we will share any information in due course.”
Inside the fightback against plan to bring Children’s A&E back to Southport
By Paul Faulkner and Jamie Lopez
Councillors in Lancashire will try to argue both the process and decision were flawed as they fight the decision to move Children’s A&E services to Southport.
An emergency meeting of Lancashire County Council’s health scrutiny committee convened on Monday to formalise plans to ask the government to overturn the decision reached last month.
After long-running planning to locate all A&E services in one location and a consultation which took place last year, leaders from the Shaping Care Together (SCT) programme - a joint committee of the NHS integrated care boards (ICBs) for Lancashire and South Cumbria, and Cheshire and Merseyside - concluded in March that Southport should be the place for this instead of Ormskirk.
It means that Ormskirk’s department will be closed and moved to Southport in a £33m development - around one third of the forecast cost had Ormskirk been chosen instead.
The current split-site A&E arrangement for children and adults in Ormskirk and Southport is the only such set-up between any two district general hospitals in the country, according to local health leaders. Meanwhile, the decision to co-locate will also mean the return of 24 hour operation for the children’s emergency unit, with Ormskirk’s having closed from midnight-8am since the height of the pandemic in 2020.
The Southport option can also be completed two years faster and SCT leaders concluded it should be chosen on clinical and financial grounds. The move was widely celebrated in Southport but faces intense opposition in West Lancashire, with promises of a fightback launched within moments of the decision being finalised.
West Lancashire MP Ashley Dalton has requested the decision be reviewed by Heath Secretary Wes Streeting and borough and county councillors promised to do the same. More details of that have now emerged at the hastily conveyed meeting at County Hall in Preston.
Streeting has the power to reverse the change and those in Lancashire are moving forward with plans to convince him to do so. The cross-party group – made up of both county and district councillors – unanimously backed the move seeking his intervention on Monday.
Members cited concerns over the process surrounding the NHS decision and questioned whether the shake-up was in “the best interests” of health services in West Lancashire.
A 13-week public consultation was carried out between July and October last year but health scrutiny committee member County Cllr Shaun Crimmins condemned the fact that a “preferred option” – to move the children’s A&E to Southport, as opposed to the adult emergency unit to Ormskirk – had been set out by health officials before residents were asked for their opinion. SCT leaders have repeatedly defended this, saying it is the recommended way to run such consultations.
