About SouthportGuide
Built by a local.
Powered by 20 years
of web expertise.
SouthportGuide exists because Southport deserves a visitor guide that is actually useful. Not council copy. Not a tourism board template. Something honest, locally written, and built to last.
We help visitors make confident decisions about where to eat, stay, park, and what to see. And we help local businesses reach the tourism audience that, until now, had no proper digital home to find them.
The Open Championship returns to Royal Birkdale in July 2026. The Marine Lake Events Centre opens in 2027. Southport is entering its most significant period for visitor footfall in a generation. We are building the digital infrastructure to make the most of it.
What we have built
1,103+
Local businesses listed
500+
Southport postcode pages
106
Car parks verified and mapped
68+
Editorial guides and articles
200k+
Verified Google reviews indexed
4,791
Land Registry sales mapped
Data no other Southport guide has
Our mission
Building the digital infrastructure
Southport deserves
Southport has never had a visitor guide with real editorial depth. Tourism bodies produce brochure copy. TripAdvisor has no local knowledge. The council site answers different questions entirely.
SouthportGuide is the answer to that gap. A guide with the data depth, editorial quality and technical foundation that a town hosting The Open Championship and opening a 4,000-capacity events venue actually needs. Not a site that exists for a single season. Something built to rank, built to last, and genuinely useful to the people who visit and the businesses who serve them.
The people behind it
Terry
Chief Editor · Southport local, 40+ years
SouthportGuide is written in the voice of Terry, a composite editorial persona built from genuine local knowledge, reader feedback, and decades of experience living in the town. Terry reflects the perspective of someone who has eaten in most of the restaurants, walked every part of the seafront, and knows which car parks fill up first on a summer Saturday.
The content is honest. If something is not worth the journey, we say so. If somewhere is overpriced, we mention it. No paid editorial placements. No sponsored content disguised as a review.
A note on transparency: Terry is an editorial voice, not a named individual. The real person behind SouthportGuide is Damian Roche, founder of Churchtown Media.
Damian Roche
Founder, Churchtown Media Ltd (Co. No. 16960442)
Damian is a 20-year web and SEO professional based in Churchtown, Southport. He built SouthportGuide because he could not find a genuinely useful, editorially independent visitor guide to his own town.
SouthportGuide is built on the same Next.js infrastructure Churchtown Media uses for commercial clients. Technically sound, fast-loading, and engineered to rank from day one. Not a template. A properly built publishing platform.
SouthportGuide is part of the Sefton Coast Network. Four independent editorial guides covering Southport, Formby, links golf, and coastal wildlife.
LinkedIn profile →Why it works
What makes us different
Built to rank, not just exist
Most local guides run on templates. SouthportGuide is built on Next.js 16 with structured schema, Core Web Vitals-optimised delivery, and technical SEO from the ground up. The same approach used by national publishers, applied to a town that deserved it.
Part of a four-site network
SouthportGuide is one of four interconnected editorial sites on the Sefton Coast. FormbyGuide, SeftonLinks, and SeftonCoastWildlife cross-link and share domain authority. A business listed here gains exposure across the whole network.
Data nobody else has
500+ postcode pages enriched with Land Registry sales, crime data, flood zones, Ofsted ratings and broadband speeds. No estate agent framing, no tourism board spin. Just the data, presented honestly.
What we cover
Restaurants and Cafes
Independent editorial and a full directory of places to eat and drink across Southport and Birkdale.
Hotels and Accommodation
Hotels, B&Bs, and self-catering from budget to boutique. Includes Open 2026 availability notes.
Things To Do
Attractions, activities, nature, beaches and everything else to fill a day in Southport.
Events
What's on calendar, from the Flower Show to the Air Show to The Open Championship.
The Open 2026
The complete visitor hub for The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, July 2026.
MLEC Guide
The Marine Lake Events Centre. What it is, what's planned, and what it means for the town.
House Prices by Postcode
Land Registry sold prices enriched with schools, crime, flood risk and broadband. No estate agent spin.
Parking
106 car parks across Southport and the Sefton Coast, verified, mapped and described.
For local businesses
Your business, in front of visitors who are already looking
Most local businesses are well known to their regulars. The harder problem is reaching the tourism audience: day trippers from Liverpool and Manchester, visitors planning their first trip to Southport, Open Championship attendees, future MLEC audiences. These are people actively searching for where to eat, where to stay, what to do. SouthportGuide is where they land.
Every Southport business can claim a free listing with full analytics, a weekly performance email, and complete control over their details. With The Open in July 2026 and MLEC opening in 2027, there has never been a better time to be properly visible online.
Already listed? Log in to your Business Hub →
Real analytics
See who is viewing your listing, where they come from, and how they interact. Not vanity metrics. Numbers that matter.
Weekly performance email
Every week, a plain-English summary of your listing performance delivered to your inbox. No dashboard required.
Featured placement
Upgrade to appear at the top of your category. Before your competitors. Before The Open brings 40,000 extra visitors to town.
Network exposure
Your listing is visible across the Sefton Coast Network, four sites with a combined local and tourism audience.
Work with us
We are independent, but we are not closed. If you are working on something that benefits Southport, we want to hear from you.
Event organisers
If you are running an event in Southport, we cover it properly. Reach out before you publish your programme and we will build a guide around it.
Journalists and media
Editorial partnership, data on request, quotes and local context. We know Southport's numbers well and are happy to share what we know.
Councils and public sector
We are independent and that will not change. But we are aligned on wanting Southport to succeed and open to conversations about data, co-promotion and coverage.
Commercial partnerships
Sponsored content (clearly labelled), display advertising and bespoke arrangements. Particularly relevant around The Open 2026 and the MLEC launch.
Independence and transparency
SouthportGuide is free to use and fully independent. No official body funds it. No council budget. It is funded by featured placement in the business directory. Businesses can pay for premium positioning in listings and categories. This is clearly disclosed on the site.
Featured placement does not influence editorial content. A restaurant that pays for a featured listing does not get a better review. It gets better visibility in the directory. If anything is sponsored, it is explicitly labelled.
We may also earn affiliate commissions from some booking links. These are disclosed where they appear.
Get in touch
To list your business, enquire about featured placement, report anything that looks wrong, or discuss a partnership, use the contact form or email us directly.