Originally Posted by gazaprop

I can neither agree nor disagree on the costs and revenues element as I simply don't know.
There are those posting who hint that they know but cherry pick their examples to suit their opinion.
For example I'd love to know what the figures are for Business Rates and which area contributes the most. Similarly I'd love to know what the figures are for Council Tax and which area contributes the most. Maybe then we could put to bed the silly North/South argument on who props up who.

Come on guys - if you know what the revenue streams amount to then tell us!
I agree with some of the posters - we need facts not postulation.

This may give you some clue:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/dat...ocal-authority
Since which time the Council Tax has increased for an average Classified C Band home. For the Year 2018/2019 The average council tax in Sefton is £1581, while for instance - in Preston council tax is given as £1151.
For Sefton Expenditure and Contributions to the Liverpool Joint Council:
https://www.sefton.gov.uk/your-counc...nsparency.aspx
To be compared with Lancashire:
http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/media/9...ts-2016-17.pdf

Originally Posted by mike1979

What if Lancs doesn't want Southport ? Has anyone asked that authority ?

Wouldn't Southport just moan about everything going to Skem, with as per usual no evidence ?

You took the words right out of my mouth Mike, substitute Skem for Bootle.

Thinking about the services that would have to be re-negotiated or re-thought, it's not just the council and the transport that would need a re-boot. The local district general hospital would probably be ok, but for mental health services the service is Mersey Care, and covers the whole of Merseyside, including Southport. If Southport left Sefton, it would cause a lot of difficulties for the service from the Hesketh Centre on Albert Road.

Mersey Care are also in the middle of building a brand new facility for Southport on the site of the old infirmary on Scarisbrick New Road, aiming to get this built by 2020. What would happen to this if Southport left Sefton and Merseyside? (The Hesketh Centre will close when the new facility opens, so we aren't gaining on the number of inpatient beds - the new facility has the same number of beds, 44 to cover beds lost at the Hesketh Centre and the geriatric unit currently at Scarisbrick New Road.)

The facility in Southport only has so many beds, and if they are all full, inpatients are sent to Clock View in Walton, which has a nearby train station (Rice Lane), only a couple of stops from Sandhills and the Northern Line to Southport. If the facilities in Southport were absorbed by Lancashire Care, patients could be admitted anywhere in Lancashire where there are facilities - potentially many miles away from home, with minimal transport links. Inpatient beds are not allocated on the basis of proximity to your home, but on the basis of where one is available - possibly Lancaster, Blackpool or Blackburn. This is a daunting prospect for vulnerable people and their carers.

Domain Name: SOUTHPORTSURVEY.COM



clientTransferProhibitedRegistrant Name: DAMIEN MOORE
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: DAMIEN MOORE MP
Registrant Street: HOUSE OF COMMONS
Registrant City: LONDON
Registrant State/Province: LONDON
Registrant Postal Code: SW1A 0AA
Registrant Country: GB
Registrant Phone: +44.7714650883


Registrant Email: DAMIEN.MOORE.MP@PARLIAMENT.UK

Originally Posted by eyeopener

Domain Name: SOUTHPORTSURVEY.COM



clientTransferProhibitedRegistrant Name: DAMIEN MOORE
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: DAMIEN MOORE MP
Registrant Street: HOUSE OF COMMONS
Registrant City: LONDON
Registrant State/Province: LONDON
Registrant Postal Code: SW1A 0AA
Registrant Country: GB
Registrant Phone: +44.7714650883


Registrant Email: DAMIEN.MOORE.MP@PARLIAMENT.UK

So what? He's hardly trying to hide it is his survey.

Originally Posted by said

Born and bred in Southport and have spent most of my life there. The fact that I inherited a property in Cheshire, and that is my registered address has no bearing on the fact that I spend most of my time in Southport. I have seen far more changes and deterioration in Southport than I care to and this has happened during the time Southport came under Sefton. The deterioration has increased faster during the period that Liverpool has been developing. Vast sums of money have been spent on Liverpool and nearby areas - yet Southport is a popular leisure resort, where no doubt business people coming to Liverpool would want to visit! It is common sense to invest in Southport!

Funny how that is TOTALLY different from the story you used to give out Marvin... you said then that you were from Congleton, lived in Chester and your claim then was that your sister now lived here?

Make southport great again.

Originally Posted by Gwhizz

Funny how that is TOTALLY different from the story you used to give out Marvin... you said then that you were from Congleton, lived in Chester and your claim then was that your sister now lived here?

Marvin on another site claims to have been born in Congleton and now lives in Chester I am perplexed by his constant claiming to have a meaningful affinity with Southport.Is his business here? does he pay Council tax here? Seemingly not. Anyone can comment about a place, maybe Marvin visited as a schoolboy but his spurious links in any meaningful sense with Southport are bizarre.

Originally Posted by Gwhizz

Apart from Lancs being in no better (indeed some may argue worse) state than Sefton, those talking bout going into lancs (or west lancs) are making assumptions... but they might not want us.

My fear is that, since Damien Moore has the ear of government, he will just railroad through any plans he has, because he just does not want to deal with Bootle. Lancs or West Lancs may not get too much say in any of this. Tories have used the Boundary Commission to make it easier for Tories to win seats at general election, after all. Why wouldn't they do the same in this instance, to make life easier for a Tory MP?

Originally Posted by Drugged Onions

Make southport great again.

Trumpety trump!

Originally Posted by Cookie17

My fear is that, since Damien Moore has the ear of government, he will just railroad through any plans he has, because he just does not want to deal with Bootle. Lancs or West Lancs may not get too much say in any of this. Tories have used the Boundary Commission to make it easier for Tories to win seats at general election, after all. Why wouldn't they do the same in this instance, to make life easier for a Tory MP?

But West Lancs is a Labour council as well so why would Damien Moore find them any easier to deal with than Bootle? Mind you Mr Moore doesn't exactly elaborate on what difficulties he has dealing with Sefton and Bootle wards only account for 12 out of 43 Labour councillors in Sefton.

Originally Posted by salus.populi

But West Lancs is a Labour council as well so why would Damien Moore find them any easier to deal with than Bootle? Mind you Mr Moore doesn't exactly elaborate on what difficulties he has dealing with Sefton and Bootle wards only account for 12 out of 43 Labour councillors in Sefton.

Exactly, so does Damien Moore swing towards a unitary authority?

I'll give some arguments as to why a unitary authority would not be good for Southport below.

1) In 1997 the Local Government Commission looked into potential changes to Sefton Council, and formed the conclusion that it would cost a lot and delivery of services would be at risk. They also said, "There is a real danger that a new authority for Southport would be marginalised, without a strong voice in Merseyside or beyond. It would have limited resources to tackle the pressures on services from the combination of tourism and an elderly population, and might find it difficult to attract staff of the right calibre."

2) So how much would the expense of re-organisation be? In the Boundary Commission's report, figures were quoted from KPMG estimating the cost, along with increased ongoing costs. Allowing for inflation, the current projected cost would be an increase of over 25% in the first year.

3) This figure is only an estimation, and it is hard to see that money covering all the costs of set-up, since a unitary authority has to cover over 1,300 statutory duties, and the set-up costs for any re-organisation would have to cover many unknown variables, such as management and consultancy fees, legal costs, recruiting, negotiations with the likes of Merseytravel, the Liverpool City Region, police and fire authority, waste disposal authorities, health authorities (councils are responsible for public health duties), and many other organisations. Who would carry out this set-up and negotiation, and what would it cost? Does seem that financial risks and uncertainties snowball the more you look into it.

4) Sefton Council owns assets in Southport, such as the Town Hall and the Atkinson. This is prime real estate on Lord Street, and would any unitary authority have to purchase it from Sefton? At what cost to the council taxpayer?

5) Southport’s costs under a unitary authority just keep coming, for example, Southport has 21 councillors within Sefton, but a unitary authority would require almost double that, at 40 councillors, in order to function and fulfil all its committee obligations.

6) Breaking up a local authority in the way that is being proposed has never been done before, so there is the uncertainty of knowing the risks, and what would be any potential improvements for residents.

7) Southport has lost a number of businesses over the last few years, particularly on Lord Street and the rest of the town centre. Whilst the Tories and Lib Dems may wish to blame that all on Bootle Labour, it is clear that many of the businesses that have closed have blamed high rents from landlords for this, and there is also the added problem of people needing or wanting to shop on the internet for the sake of convenience, or to save money due to the austerity of the last 8 years. This is all relevant because the current government is moving funding of local councils away from central government grants towards using local business rates by 2020. With business closures come losses to business rates, so it is difficult to see how a re-jigged local authority could avoid costs to the council tax payer, and no one knows what the situation will look like in 2020 - it could get better, worse or stay the same. A large chunk of business rates in Sefton come from the docks in Seaforth, and we would lose any potential gains from that source if we left Sefton. Therefore the level of future funding is hugely uncertain, and is starting to sound a bit like Brexit, isn’t it? So how’s the Brexit thing going? Not too well, last time I heard.

8) Which brings me to my next point. John Pugh is all in favour of us leaving Sefton, and here’s a quote from him regarding Europe: “The family of nations that constitute the EU is not without its stresses and strains, but nothing is ever solved in families by walking away and rejection.” I know Damien Moore is a Tory, not a Lib Dem, but we need to be told whether the potential gains are not just wishful thinking. But from the experience with Brexit, Damien Moore can’t tell us, that’s for sure, as there are too many variables to be certain.

9) Merseytravel’s chair, Liam Robinson, has said, “I was somewhat puzzled to see the suggestion that current concessionary rail and bus travel for over 60s Southport residents across Merseyside would be safe if Southport set up its own council. The process of setting up a new council would inevitably lead to more bureaucracy and costs and put even greater pressure on budgets to provide services. In this event any new council would have to provide the national concessionary scheme and negotiate its own deal on local additional concessions either separatey, or continuing to be part of Merseyside.” So there we have it. The boss of Merseytravel says, whether we’re in or out of Merseyside under any new authority, the concessionary passes are not guaranteed. Potential loss of free train travel throughout Merseyside.

10) If Southport was a unitary authority, it would be a very small one, and, as they say, there is strength in numbers, meaning Southport would struggle to exert influence regionally and therefore would never be at the front of the queue for things like transport and infrastructure funding. A good argument for us remaining in the Liverpool City Region.

It is fake news to make him look good.

It appears from what I have seen that only the Labour party have done the groundwork on costs of Southport becoming a Unitary Authority, even if they could convince the boundaries commission and government to be one, which they won't.

The whole idea is suicide for Southport, in fact that would be a better name for this instead of "Southport of Sefton" is should be "Suicide for Southport".

And all the talk of Labour, they only became the majority party in 2012, after decades of Tory and Libdems running Sefton and Southport and then the Tories/Libdems went and cut Seftons budget by £200 million.

Quite why people cannot open their eyes to the real culprits in this town the very Tories and LibDems who keep brining this idea up.

Thinking about the services involved with Merseyside and the council, what about Merseyside Ambulance Service, Merseyside Fire & Rescue, and Merseyside Police? What happens to them in Southport, in any given situation regarding leaving Sefton?

Jobs could potentially be on the line, here. And the logistics of negotiations for multiple organisations make it look even more complicated than Brexit. At least with Brexit, there's only one organisation to deal with - the EU.

Regarding the three services I've just mentioned, and there will be more, who will carry out negotiations, and at what cost? Over what timescale would negotiations need to be carried out, and how could you ensure all parties meet the deadline? What happens to the services if the deadline is not met?

What happens to the properties in Southport owned by these organisations of Merseyside, and how much would the transfer of ownership cost? Who pays for that?

Originally Posted by Cookie17

Allowing for inflation, the current projected cost would be an increase of over 25% in the first year.

That's an interesting figure that you may well have produced out of thin air. Purely as a matter of interest, do you have anything concrete to support it?