Southport esplanade updates given in ‘error’

What is actually happening at one of Southport’s most prominent sites?

The future of a key Southport site has been thrown into confusion after the council admitted this week that months of updates given to councillors about it were incorrect.

An exclusivity agreement linked to a proposed £75 million Cove resort development on Southport’s esplanade expired in October 2025 and has not been renewed. However, councillors continued to be told for months in cabinet member updates by Cllr Paulette Lappin that the agreement was still in place. 

When the Monitor pointed this out to the council, we were told the ‘discrepancy’ was the result of an ‘officer error’.

The issue was also discussed at a meeting of Sefton’s regeneration and skills overview and scrutiny committee earlier this week after we identified the discrepancy.

Councillor Lappin did not attend the meeting and sent her apologies. In her place, regeneration lead Stephen Watson referred to the incorrect information, telling members the references had effectively been a ‘cut and paste’ mistake.

The admission raises new questions about what exactly is happening at one of Southport’s most prominent development sites ahead of a major cabinet decision currently scheduled for next month.

The council-owned land close to the town’s seafront has already been the subject of years of speculation since a park and ride at the site closed in 2020.

Since 2023 the site has been the proposed location for the Cove resort development, featuring a surf lagoon, hotel, thermal spa and visitor attractions. The scheme has been discussed in Southport for years, initially at a different location, without yet reaching the planning application stage.

The Cove resort plan was first announced in 2020 as a proposed £40 million development near Princes Park and Kings Gardens. At the time it was promoted by Go Surf Ltd, which was incorporated in September 2020 and has since been dissolved.

It was highlighted in Southport’s Town Deal bid in October of that year as an example of significant private investment interest in the town. Sefton Council also announced it had entered into an exclusivity agreement relating to that proposal.

By 2023, however, the Princes Park/Kings Gardens scheme had not materialised. Instead, Sefton Council announced an 18-month exclusivity agreement for the esplanade site with GSL Developments Ltd, a newer company involving the same directors which had been set up in 2022. The project had also grown into a proposed £75 million leisure destination.

That agreement, the council has now confirmed, had been extended for six months beyond the original 18 months before expiring in October 2025 and has not been renewed or extended further. The six month extension, the council said, had been subject to ‘certain deliverables.’

The Monitor has been unable to locate a publicly available decision relating to the 2023 exclusivity agreement beyond the at times incorrect references contained within the cabinet member update reports. We asked the council where the agreement itself and the decision to enter into it were formally publicly recorded but have not received a clarification by the time of publication. The council did state that it was a formal, signed agreement. We have submitted Freedom of Information requests on the issue and will report the outcome when we hear back.

The relatively limited publicly available information has prompted questions about both the future of the site and how the proposal is expected to progress.

Set up in April 2022, the latest publicly filed accounts for GSL Developments Ltd, the company behind the Cove proposal, show it had £2 in cash at bank and in hand in April 2025. Company accounts do not necessarily reflect wider funding arrangements, investors or development partners.

Its directors include businessman Anthony Howard, who has several long-standing businesses in the town, and Tamlyn Stone. Stone was previously a director of Blue Gate Capital Ltd.

Blue Gate Capital was censured by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2019 over its management of a fund the regulator described as an unregulated collective investment scheme, or UCIS. A UCIS is a type of pooled investment that is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and generally carries fewer investor protections than regulated investment schemes.

Ordering the company to pay £200k restitution to investors, the FCA said Blue Gate Capital had breached its principles relating to due diligence and communications with investors. Blue Gate Capital subsequently entered insolvency and was dissolved in 2024.

There is no suggestion the FCA action has any connection with the Cove proposal or GSL Developments beyond the fact that one of GSL’s directors was previously a director of Blue Gate Capital.

The Monitor asked GSL Developments through the Cove Resort Facebook page and through its directors about Stone’s previous involvement with Blue Gate Capital. We also asked whether GSL remains actively pursuing the Cove proposal, what progress has been made since the exclusivity agreement expired and how the project is being funded. We have not received a response.

Opposition leader Liberal Democrat councillor John Pugh said he has been talking about his concerns over the scheme for some time. He told the Monitor: ‘I have for a long time expressed public scepticism about whether this project can be delivered and have sought assurances, testing whether Sefton feel sure there is the financial backing and technical know how in place to bring such an ambitious scheme to fruition.

‘The chopping and changing by the Council, the confusing messages about exclusivity agreements and the frankly misleading press releases do not persuade me that the Council has got any sort of grip on the matter.’

We asked Sefton Council and GSL Developments for comment on Cllr Pugh’s remarks and have not received a response. A council spokesperson did say that ‘evaluation of options for the future of the site includes due diligence and appropriate measures to protect the Council, as would be the case with any such transaction.’

Asked by the Monitor to clarify the position around the Cove project given the lack of current exclusivity agreement, a Sefton Council spokesperson said the absence of an exclusivity agreement ‘has no bearing on the planned project’. The council reiterated it is currently evaluating ‘all options’ for the future of the former park and ride site, including but not limited to the proposed Cove Resort development.

The council said the site is ‘strategically significant and high value’ and that its options evaluation for the site includes ‘a review of economic, social, environmental and financial outcomes from a range of potential future uses and partnerships.’

The uncertainty also matters for another reason. Before the Cove proposal moved to the esplanade, Sefton Council had spent two years backing a very different vision for the site.

From 2021, Southport Community Energy Ltd had been working alongside Sefton Council, with support from the Combined Authority, on plans to replace the long-defunct wind turbine near the Eco Centre with a much larger 1MW turbine on the esplanade. Indeed, according to director Paul Bradshaw, the council was ‘the driver’ of the scheme.

The turbine could have generated renewable electricity to help power up to 60% of Dunes Splash World’s energy usage while surplus electricity would go into the national grid, as well as creating a community benefit fund worth potentially more than £1 million for local projects over the lifetime of the turbine.

Around £140k of public funding was secured through Sefton Council and the combined authority to pay for technical studies, environmental assessments and other work needed before a planning application could be submitted.

Director Paul Bradshaw told the Monitor that Southport Community Energy had completed consultation work, secured funding for the turbine itself and was ‘very close’ to submitting the planning application when events took an unexpected turn.

Paul said the organisation believed it was in discussions with Sefton Council about securing an exclusivity agreement for the site when the local authority instead announced it had entered into an exclusivity agreement with GSL Developments, a decision which effectively ‘killed off’ the community energy scheme because the proposal was so site-specific.

A council spokesperson said: ‘The exclusivity agreement [with GSL] enabled the counterparty to invest in design and business case development for the potential scheme, which in turn gives the Council information that enables evaluation of the projects and the economic, social, environmental and financial outcomes it would deliver. The agreement included no commitment or certainty for the counterparty on any future disposal of the site.’

For Southport Community Energy though the move left the project in limbo. ‘The funds were in place and we were ready to go,’ Paul said. ‘it took the wind right out of our sails. We’ve been trying to find out information and waiting to see what happens ever since.’

The significance of that stalled project may now be greater than when it was first proposed. Sefton Council declared a climate emergency in 2019 and committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030. However, councillors were told earlier this month that work to reduce emissions from the council’s own estate has slowed significantly, with several projects facing delays and funding challenges.

Against that backdrop, the Southport turbine represented one of few major renewable energy schemes being actively developed on council-owned land. Southport Community Energy argued it would not only contribute towards the borough’s climate ambitions but also reduce council energy costs by helping to power Splash World while generating the long term community funding.

We asked Sefton Council why the energy scheme has not progressed and whether it believes that opportunity was lost. A council spokesperson said the turbine scheme is one aspect of an options evaluation for the site, stating however that  ‘uncertainties about the project proposed are the planning-related risks given the height of the proposed wind turbine and the impact it has on adjacent areas, and given the concerns raised and shared with us on behalf of local businesses regarding that proposal.’

The spokesperson added that the council ‘remains committed to actions that address climate emergency, and this includes a range of current and potential future decarbonisation and sustainable energy opportunities.’

The timing of this week’s revelation about the exclusivity agreement is notable because the options evaluation mentioned by the council in response to our questions is tabled for discussion at an upcoming cabinet meeting.

The item ‘Options appraisal and recommendation for proposed disposal of Esplanade park and ride site for third party development’ first appeared on Sefton Council’s forward plan shortly after the exclusivity agreement expired, and has been scheduled for cabinet before without ending up on the final agenda. It is now slated again to come before cabinet on July 23. The council has told the Monitor, however, that this may be deferred due to ongoing work behind the scenes.

What happens next for the esplanade could perhaps become a little clearer when the report does make its way to cabinet, although when that will be is far from certain.

Until then, questions remain not just about the future of the esplanade and the Cove proposal, but also whether any hope remains for the community energy project that came before it. It also raises wider questions about the council’s regeneration vision for the resort town.

As Cllr Pugh put it: ‘Regeneration led by wishful thinking is a recipe for embarrassment and we currently have the embarrassment of no wind turbine, no surf facility and an abandoned park and ride site.’

The Monitor has contacted GSL Developments via the Cove Resort Facebook page and through its directors for comment.

before you hit the surf …

On the hottest week of the year so far, we hope all this talk of unbuilt surf resorts, things that look like giant fans and the climate emergency hasn’t got you too hot and bothered.

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