Hello and welcome to the midweek edition of The Southport Lead.
This week I took the train down to Liverpool for the Labour Party Conference where the headlines were grabbed by Andy Burnham’s speech which effectively ends the triple lock and proposes a National Care Service.
Conferences like this are always a strange experience, starting with protestors outside competing for attention on conflicting causes - this year also saw dozens arrested for showing support for proscribed group Palestine Action and, somehow, the continued presence of Steve Bray and his loudspeaker.
Inside, trade unions lobbied for support near spaces sponsored by the likes of Uber; mobile studios were set up by Sky News, Times Radio and GB News while BBC Radio 5 Live operated from trestle tables in a hallway.
Away from all of that, a packed line up of fringe events saw discussions on dozens of subjects relating to the current state of the country and its future. It is from those where today’s main story is sourced.
Southport briefing
⚽ The playing fields at Sandbrook Road will get a six-figure investment including new changing rooms and improved football pitches. Funding for the works will come from the Football Foundation’s Home Advantage programme and will also result in new toilets and catering options being created. The funding is only obtainable if a league or club assumes the management responsibility for a site and as such Sefton Council is set to grant the Hightown Junior Football League a 25 year lease. While Sandbrook Road, known locally as Bods, was previously a busy site for adult and junior teams, it no longer has any football teams regularly hiring pitches there. Meanwhile, the Hightown League has enjoyed significant growth in recent years, particularly in girls’ football and currently uses pitches at Carr Lane and Meols Cop Park as well as its original site in Hightown.
👂 A public consultation on plans to redesign Town Hall Gardens will end next week. People are being urged to have their say on the plans which will see the area outside Southport Town Hall and The Atkinson transformed into a botanical garden and performance space. A £10 million regeneration project for the site was announced after the gardens became a key focal point for the community since the tragic events of July 2024. Funded by Central Government, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and Sefton Council, the regeneration of the gardens is the shared hope of the families of Alice Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Stancombe as their way of saying ‘thank you’ to the town who support those directly impacted throughout an unimaginably difficult time. The plans include four connected areas named The Performance Plaza, The Mega Ripples, Celebration Dunes and The Botanical Garden. Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, said: “Southport has shown incredible strength and solidarity over the last two years, and the Town Hall Gardens have become a place where that spirit is felt every day. These plans give us the opportunity to create something that reflects the character of Southport and gives people a beautiful, welcoming place to come together for generations to come. I’m really pleased that, along with our partners, we in the Combined Authority have been able to play our part in making this vision a reality, and I’d encourage everyone in Southport to have their say on the proposals.” The consultation is open until October 5th and people can view the designs and complete the consultation online or give feedback via 0800 080 3263 or FreePost DEVCOMMS.
Private equity-backed children’s homes are ‘rinsing council budgets dry’
By Jamie Lopez
Care companies owned by private equity firms have been accused of “rinsing council budgets dry”.
Southport MP Patrick Hurley made the claim as he called for the funding responsibility for social care to be removed from local authorities. Currently, councils are legally required to cover the costs of adult and children’s social care and in Sefton that accounts for 66% of its overall budget this year.
Speaking at a fringe event at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, Hurley said the strain on council resources meant that other services were left “competing with potholes” for limited funding pools. Hurley, who has been MP since 2024, took aim at some private care companies, effectively accusing them of profiteering off the social care crisis.
As part of a discussion of how to support community groups and whether it was realistic for lost services such as libraries and youth clubs to return, he raised the issue of council funds being spent on for-profit care companies. He said: “What we need to see is the removal of statutory designation of some services. Private equity-backed children’s homes are absolutely rinsing the budgets of local authorities.”
While it was not claimed by Hurley that all privately owned children’s homes are culpable, research has shown that the industry is a significant growth area for investors. According to research from the thinktank Common Wealth, 11 of the 20 largest providers of fostering and children’s homes in England are at least partly owned by private equity companies and sovereign wealth funds.
It also found that the four largest independent fostering agencies have paid out more than £200m in interest to shareholders and investors since 2020 - with that money ultimately coming from taxpayers.
In Common Wealth’s report on the crisis facing children’s social care, data analyst Sophie Flinders wrote: “The progressive dismantling of public capacity and the creation of a quasi-market have not produced efficiency and choice, but a system optimised for financial extraction where the state is implicated as an architect of these extractive practices.
“Paying for-profit companies to run these services channels taxpayer money to private hands, while the risks of poor service delivery are borne by children in care and local authorities.”
Common Wealth has called for a ban on for-profit providers in children’s social care but naturally faces opposition from those involved. The National Fostering Group is the biggest independent provider of fostering places across the country and is currently under the ownership of a second private equity firm. Its chief executive Tim Barclay has defended its operations, saying: “We support about 3,600 children across the UK through a network of fostering agencies, all of which are rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by regulators.
“Every pound the group receives is focused on frontline care: recruiting and training foster carers, therapeutic support for children, safeguarding and the 24/7 professional support that helps placements succeed. The costs of fostering reflect the increasingly complex needs of children coming into care and the specialist, wraparound support they require.”
