Pub giant JD Wetherspoon submit plans for 30-room seaside hotel in Merseyside

Pub chain JD Wetherspoon has submitted plans to open a new 30-bedroom hotel in a historic building just a short walk from Southport beach.

The Sir Henry Segrave pub currently occupies the ground floor of the building on Lord Street, which was originally built around 1880. The pub company intends to change the vacant upper three floors into bedrooms, staff facilities and a Tower Suite.

Under the proposal, changes would also be made to the ground floor to form a new hotel reception area with a dedicated entrance. Bar and kitchen upgrades are also planned and the toilets will be relocated to the first floor, our sister site Insider Media reports.

The site is named after Sir Henry Segrave, who, in 1926, increased the land-speed record to 152mph, in his Sunbeam Ladybird, on Southport’s Birkdale Sands. He died four years later on Lake Windemere, while setting a new water speed record of 98.76mph in his Miss England II speedboat.

Wetherspoon owns over 40 hotels across the UK, many of which are in renovated spaces above its pubs. A planning and heritage statement submitted with the proposal for The Sir Henry Segrave states that the company has ‘capabilities of reviving significant buildings’.

The planning application for 93-97 Lord Street is yet to be given the green light and will be considered by Sefton Council at a later date.

A series of regeneration projects planned for Southport’s waterfront. A £73 million scheme to build a new state-of-the-art Marine Lake Events Centre is already underway and plans for an ambitious £75m surfing resort, leisure beach and 4-star hotel have been lodged.

However, the seaside town’s famous 160-year-old pier has been closed for safety reasons since December 2022 and there is no date set yet for it to be re-opened.