By Andrew Brown, Stand Up For Southport
This year’s Small Business Saturday takes place today!
It’s the perfect opportunity for supporting our many amazing shops, restaurants, hotels, guest houses, bars and other businesses that we have here in Sunny Southport.
Through Stand Up For Southport, we are asking you to help us to celebrate all that we have here.
Please use our Stand Up For Southport Facebook group and our 18,300 local members to post your great photos of excellent local businesses, attractions such as the Gingerbread Trail or the Makers Markets, or events such as the Winter Light Trail or the Queenscourt Hospice Santa Sprint. Let it glow!
Southport’s local businesses have endured an incredibly challenging few months since the Covid pandemic first struck the UK in March last year, and we saw the first in a series of lockdowns.
For many small businesses, last Christmas, often the busiest and most important time of the year, was written off due to surging Covid cases and a sudden lockdown.
It makes it twice as important that where we can, we avoid online shopping and out of town retail centres and instead support our local traders. They both need and deserve it.
Of course there are many great reasons to come and shop, eat out, party or stay in Southport this Christmas.
They include some superb events, including the brilliant Winter Light Trail at Victoria Park.
Local businesses, Southport BID, Sefton Council and others have done a huge amount to make Southport really sparkle this Christmas.
You can enjoy Santa’s Grottos in Wayfarers Arcade; a new Digital Winter Wonderland at Marble Place; free Christmas movies and a Christmas Market at Southport Market; or explore the town centre with a new Gingerbread Trail.
You will be able to see Southport from space, now that Southport BID and local lighting and Christmas decorating firm IllumiDex UK Ltd have created the ‘boulevard of light’ with 300,000 lights along Lord Street in Southport town centre.
The 25,000 twinkling lights of Southport’s Christmas tree in the Town Hall Gardens, as well as lighting outside local businesses including Remedy and The Pavilion, are making our town shine even more.
Next weekend, you can start your Christmas shopping by donning a red Father Christmas suit and taking part in the Queenscourt Hospice Santa Sprint!
Southport is a wonderful place to be at Christmas. We hope local residents and visitors alike make the most of what our town has to offer.
Please shop here, eat here, drink here, stay over, and enjoy Christmas as only Southport can.
Small Business Saturday UK was set up as a campaign which highlights small business success and encourages consumers to ‘shop local’ and support small businesses in their communities.
The day itself takes place on the first Saturday in December each year, but the campaign aims to have a lasting impact on small businesses.
So enjoy Small Business Saturday today, and enjoy supporting local firms.
Let’s keep this going and make it a Small Business December.
Do you have a story for Stand Up For Southport? Please message Andrew Brown via Facebook here or email me at: mediaandrewbrown@gmail.com
