http://www.pleasureland.uk.com/
There are many problems with southport, access to it is a main bugbare you have to go to liverpool and up on an A road to get to it, blackpool has a direct motorway to it. Blackpool is on the sea, southport for some obsene reason decided to 'reclaim' land and make lakes between the prom and the sea, which then fell in to disrepair and had no use. Now we have supermarkets and shopping centres on the sea front.
Southport is half nice half disgusting and dirty feeling, with very few visitor attractions other than a pier that rarely reaches the sea and pleasure land.
I blame the local council tourism, commerce and pleasureland, they make nothing of the place and the only thing they have done is build supermarkets which take it further away from the seaside theme.
Pleasure land brag about investment, they call it a theme park, but in reality it's only themed where they want it to be themed and its filthy and dirty.
They could have themed the whole park and even covered it over with a dome like fantasy island at ingoldmells(which is slowly losing it's themeing and is a dirty filthy place to) the themeing when fantasy island was opened was amazing, every thing was themed, even the doors, the floors, the pubs and shops. An inside area for the kids rides would give them somewhere to go when its raining.
Cleanliness is everything and something for all ages is too, and all this, makes it inviting for people like me and entwisi to walk around and waste a few quid.
Conclusion bad managment all round. Blackpool is no better, nice themed front, filthy dump inside.
Dunno how they got the money to build a new pier monstrosity that it is.
All this remind me of the death of new brighton.
New brighton once had a tower taller than blackpools, An olympic sized outdoor swimming pool and a pier, all of which have now gone.