Southport Hesketh Park: Revamp starts after £850k will bequest

The improvement works at the Victorian-era park will start next week

The restoration of a historic park is set to start thanks to a £850,000 bequest by neighbours.

Louis and Anita Marks bequeathed the money to Hesketh Park in Southport.

Sefton Council said the contract had been signed and sealed with the trustees and work on the sensory garden would begin next week.

It said the refurbishment would also include restoring the park's Victorian conservatory and a memorial to acknowledge the couple's "generosity".

The council has been working closely with the Marks family trustees and the Hesketh Park Heritage Group to outline a project plan for works at the park.

The improvement works to the sensory garden with the appointment of on-site gardeners for two years to follow.

The conservatory is set to be restored with the donation from the Marks family

In a public consultation, carried out in 2021 before the bequest, more than half of respondents rated an improvement to the park's conservatory for events, as a very high priority and there was significant support for improvements to the park's heritage features and for replanting in the sensory garden that would improve access for all.

Mark Shaw, manager of the council's Green Sefton team, said: "Thanks to the generosity of Louis and Anita Marks' bequest, we are now able to start the delivery of improvements at Hesketh Park and do the kinds of things people have told us they want to see.

"And I am so pleased to see that among the planned work is a proposal to create a memorial and acknowledgement of [their] generous bequest."

Barry Samuels, the couple's nephew and one of the trustees to the Marks Family Trust, said he still recalled the "magic" of the park when he used to visit his grandfather who lived in a house opposite the park as a young boy in the 50s.

"My aunt and uncle then moved into the house," he said, adding his uncle was a "fantastic and very skilled gardener".

"So, it is a fitting memorial to them all that the [trust] can assist to reinstate the beauty of Hesketh Park for the public to enjoy, hopefully for many years to come."