A bid has been made for Southport and Ainsdale to leave Sefton and Merseyside in what would be a landmark change.
Southport MP Damien Moore and West Lancashire MP Rosie Cooper have joined forces in hope that they can enforce a boundary change that would see Southport, Ormskirk and Skelmersdale combine. The recommendations have been submitted to Secretary of State For Levelling Up, Housing & Communities Michael Gove MP.
In their letter to the Minister, the two MPs wrote that the two communities are "better served by being in the same local authority area". The letter said: "We are writing to ask to meet you to discuss local government arrangements for the town of Southport, including its communities of Ainsdale, Birkdale, Cambridge, Dukes, Kew, Meols, and Norwood, and West Lancashire Borough Council.
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"It is our firm belief that our two communities are better served by being in the same local authority area, and we are working closer together to achieve this. As you said in your speech to Parliament on 2nd February 2022, when you unveiled the Levelling Up White Paper, 'we need to allow overlooked and undervalued communities to take control of their destiny'.
"It is with this very clear and firm commitment that we ask that the necessary provisions are made to ensure that we can achieve this aim for Southport and West Lancashire, through changing the local authority catchment area. We appreciate that this needs primary legislation, and as communities up and down the country are keen to harness this new opportunity for self-determination, we need to ensure that provisions are in place to allow us to do this.
"Thank you for considering these points. We look forward to meeting with you soon."
The topic is one that has been debated by those in the town for years, ever since the boundary changes in 1974 saw Southport leave Lancashire. Rosie Cooper MP commented on the letter, saying that her constituency is stuck in "no man's land".
She said: "In West Lancashire, we are stuck in the no man's land between Liverpool, Manchester and Preston. We need to be treated more fairly as these huge metropolitan areas use much of the available resources, leaving so very little for rural towns and villages that we have to fight for their leftover scraps.
"I am supporting this campaign because the smaller towns such as Ormskirk, Skelmersdale and Southport and our villages need to combine forces, acting together so that our voice can be as loud and strong as possible and heard by our Metropolitan neighbours.”
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