Project that will transform Blackpool beach could also stop progress on potential arena site

Sea defence work will mean that the site of the Blackpool Central development is out of action until summer 2028 at best

Hello and welcome to The Blackpool Lead.

Any plans to get spades in the ground for an arena in Blackpool won’t start for several years - due to the sea defence work which will hopefully protect the town from the threat of rising sea levels.

The arena is far from a certainty - but the news that the site is written off for the purposes of whatever permanently ends up there for the next few years is also poorly timed as Preston launches its own campaign to get a modern new venue of its own - as The Lancashire Lead has covered this week (that story will be live at 8am). The council insists there is a deal in place to move the compound if an investor is found.

We look at what’s planned for Blackpool beach in today’s edition.

Blackpool briefing

🚔 Three people have been arrested as part of a West Midlands Police murder investigation triggered by the discovery of a body in a wheelie bin in Coventry. A man and a woman in their 40s, and a man in his 20s, were arrested in Blackpool on Saturday night on suspicion of murder and assisting an offender. Enquiries are ongoing to formally identify the man found in the wheelie bin and the investigation continues.

🚗 A road in Blackpool will be closed for 12 weeks while essential repairs and repainting take place on the Waterloo Road bridge. Seasiders Way will be closed for around 12 weeks and the work will take place between 7 April and 26 June. The work includes removal lead-based paint and repainting, brickwork repairs, improved barriers and an improved pedestrian footbridge. Phase 2 will take place in 2027 and mean the closure of Waterloo Road.

🏠 The owners of up to 500 properties in Thornton have been advised to attend a drop-in session to find out more about the presence of a chemical linked to cancer. It comes after one allotment site has been closed temporarily as part of an ongoing investigation into historic contamination by the chemical used at a nearby facility, while another has closed as a precaution. Wyre Council launched a multi-agency investigation last year to consider potential historic contamination from the former ICI site on part of Hillhouse Technology Enterprise Zone. The investigation is looking into whether Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), used on the site between the 1950s and 2012 and released into the air, may have been deposited on land in the surrounding area.

---

Project that will transform Blackpool beach could also stop progress on potential arena site

Blackpool beach.

By Michael Holmes

Equipment needed for upcoming sea defence work will be stored at a compound on the site of the proposed Blackpool Central development - and is expected to be there until 2028, when the £300m plans were originally expected to come to fruition.

The compound - one of four needed for the £57m project between Gynn Square in North Shore and the Sandcastle Waterpark in South Shore - will host work cabins, welfare facilities and secure storage space for materials, plant and equipment.

It will be built by this autumn and remain in place until summer 2028, when a hotel, theatre, indoor theme parks and other public spaces such as bars and restaurants should be preparing to open.

It could mean delays at the 10-acre site, where the old police station and magistrates’ court used to be and where there remain ambitions to build some kind of top-class tourist hotspot - such as a 15,000-seater arena.