On 2 October 2025 Cabinet was asked to appropriate part of the Marine Lake Events Centre site for planning purposes, and to authorise the Executive Director for Regeneration, Economy and Assets, in consultation with the Chief Legal Officer, to negotiate compensation. The report says the money will come from the approved project budget. It names two recipients: the owners of the Southport Waterfront Hotel, and “the Scarisbrick Estate”.
The report gives the reason. A restrictive covenant dated 29 September 1885 covers most of the Southport seafront. The council, as landowner, is not to use the land for any purpose other than sanitary or recreation purposes, and no building is to be erected without the previous written consent of the Scarisbrick Estate, other than a building needed for those purposes. The council's solicitors, DLA Piper, had tried several times to contact the trustee of that estate to release the covenant. At the date of the report, no response had been received. The report says the covenant has been released several times to allow other development.
Section 203 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 lets the council build even where that breaches a restriction, once the land has been appropriated for planning purposes and planning consent is in place. Section 204 makes the council liable to pay compensation to the person who loses the benefit. The report says that compensation is likely to be limited to the depreciation of the land which benefits from the covenant, calculated under sections 7 and 10 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965, and that it will be met from the approved project budget. No figure is stated. Since that report, the estate has been in touch and has demanded compensation. No sum has been published.
What the register says
The freehold is title MS509220, land on the south east side of Marine Drive, owned by Sefton Council. The register, read on 24 September 2026, contains the conveyance of 29 September 1885. On the land tinted blue, Southport Corporation covenanted with Philip Henry Chambres and Christopher Lethbridge, and their heirs and assigns, in the terms the council report describes: sanitary or recreation purposes only, and no building without their written consent, other than a building needed for those purposes.
A second conveyance of the same date, of land tinted pink, was made by Edward Fleetwood Hesketh. That covenant is a right of access to the shore and the promenade. It is not the restriction on building.
The register also records that the building covenant has been released in part, not in whole.
- 19 May 2000, by Peter Anthony Verdin and others, trustees.
- 17 January 2002, by Charles Anthony Scarisbrick and others, trustees. The plan is filed under title MS453378, the Ocean Plaza lease.
- 27 September 2005, by Gary Shepherd and Andrew John Foden.
Charles Anthony Scarisbrick is named as one of the trustees who released a part in 2002. The register does not name him, or anyone else, as the person who can still enforce the part that was not released. The names Chambres, Lethbridge, Verdin, Shepherd and Foden do not appear in the council's published report. The report's phrase is “the Scarisbrick Estate trustee”.
The events centre agreement sits on a different piece of the same title: the land edged and numbered 24, an agreement for lease dated 22 December 2023 with SMG (UK) Limited. The register text does not say whether that piece is on the blue land, or inside one of the three releases. The title plan, and the plans attached to the deeds of release, were not available with the register. Until those plans are read, the published record shows a covenant, a decision to override it, and an authority to pay compensation from the project budget. It does not show who would be paid, or how much.
The same recommendation covers the Waterfront Hotel. The report says the council will build a new access ramp from the upper promenade, that the hotel and the vacant buildings beside it remain in administration, and that the council holds the freehold. The owners of the hotel are given the same section 204 claim, from the same budget. That claim is for the interference with access. It is a separate right from the 1885 restriction on building.