Sefton Council is considering over-riding a restrictive covenant dating back to the 19th Century to ensure that the £73 million Marine Lake Events Centre development carries on as planned.
The local authority says its lawyers have so far tried unsuccessfully to engage with the trustee of the Scarisbrick Estate, which has a covenant on the Southport seafront area.
They could instead decide to “appropriate the land for planning purposes” so it can proceed with the biggest public project to take place in Southport for decades.
The Scarisbrick Estates and the administrators in charge of the Waterfront Southport Hotel site would both be entitled to financial compensation if that happens.
The Marine Lake Events Centre, the main element of the Southport Town Deal regeneration scheme, will replace the former Southport Theatre and Convention Centre with a modern state-of-the-art facility.
Once complete, it is estimated to secure over £19 million to the local economy every year, attracting over 500,000 visitors from across the UK.
It will be operated by Legends Global (previously ASM Global), one of the world’s leading companies in live events, venues, and brands.
A comprehensive report is due before councillors on Sefton’s Cabinet at Bootle Town Hall next Thursday (2nd October 2025) outlining the progress so far and some of the challenges being faced.
A report on MLEC says: “Officers have been progressing the mitigation of the site constraints associated with the development for some time.
“This includes engaging with The Scarisbrick Estate with regards to a restrictive covenant and the current administrator of the Waterfront Hotel with regards to access agreements.
“The land is subject to restrictive Covenant imposed in a conveyance dated 29 September 1885. When a restrictive Covenant is imposed it is the responsibility of the developer in this case the Council to release this Covenant.
“The normal practice for releasing a Covenant is to pay compensation to those affected, those affected will then grant permission to develop.
“The Scarisbrick Estate Covenant exists across most of the Southport Seafront and has been released several times to allow development to take place. The Covenant states that as land owner (the Council) are not to use the land for any other purpose than sanitary or recreation purposes and that no buildings shall be erected upon any part of such land without the previous written consent of the Scarisbrick Estate.
“The Council’s appointed legal team DLA Piper have tried several times to contact The Scarisbrick Estate trustee to release the Covenant, however no responses have been forthcoming.
“Section 203 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 enables restrictive covenants to be overridden. The impact of overriding covenants in this way is that compensation would be payable under Section 204 of the 2016 Act to those parties who lost the benefit of the covenant. “This compensation is likely to be limited to the depreciation of the land benefitting from the covenants.
“Depriving an individual of their right to property without compensation can only be justified in exceptional circumstances.
“Therefore, in the event that S203 is exercised, owners of The Waterfront Hotel and The Scarisbrick Estate will be entitled to claim compensation from the Council sufficient to compensate them in monetary terms for the interference. This will be met from the current project costs.”
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