Appeal for council to support city's Pride Quarter

A council leader has been asked to provide more support for Liverpool's Pride Quarter after suggesting it was "disappearing before our eyes".

John Hyland, who runs a podcast called Proudly Said, challenged Liam Robinson on BBC Radio Merseyside about what the local authority could do to better support the area.

Hyland said the Pride Quarter in the Stanley Street, Temple Street, Cumberland Street and Eberle Street area was designated as the city's "gay quarter" in 2011 and rebranded as the Pride Quarter in 2021.

Since then Hyland said a series of LGBTQ+ venues had closed and he was now fearful the area would "just become a memory".

Hyland said he was raising "the community's concerns about the shrinking number of LGBTQ+ venues, the safety of the area, and a gap between the Quarter's branding and the support available to the spaces it was created to represent".

He said he had written an open letter about the issue to local politicians, signed by the managers of Liverpool's remaining LGBTQ+ venues - the Lisbon, the Masquerade and Superstar Boudoir - the board of trustees of the LCR Pride Foundation, LGBTQ+ sports clubs including Liverpool Frontrunners, Mersey Marauders FC and Liverpool Tritons RUFC, drag performers, charities, and Liverpool-born musician Holly Johnson.

The letter asked the council to acknowledge the community's concerns, clarify what protections exist for LGBTQ+ venues within the Pride Quarter designation, and set out what support could be made available to sustain LGBTQ+ led spaces.

In 2016, Eberle Street was revamped with yellow brick road-inspired paving and lighting as a tribute to the area's LGBTQ+ heritage.

The street was the home of Garlands, Liverpool's first late night gay club.

Despite being described at the time as the biggest investment in the city's LGBTQ+ quarter for a decade, it closed within a year.

Hyland said "the street was redesigned around a venue that no longer exists".

Robinson said he would look to see what else the council could do to support the area, and acknowledged it should be rivalling Manchester's Canal Street as a destination.

He said: "It's more than just the cold hard cash of a local economy, it's also about character and the uniqueness of a city."

Liverpool should "be cherishing" the Pride Quarter, Robinson said, adding the council took a very different approach to St Helens Council, which recently announced it would not be supporting or promoting Pride.

Reform UK's leader in St Helens, George Woodward, said his group did not consider "celebrations of sexuality, especially those with left-wing political leanings such as Pride, to be appropriate for St Helens Borough Council to dedicate valuable officer resources".

Although the council did not support Pride financially, the local authority said it would not fly the Pride flag from the Town Hall, or allow Pride displays in its libraries.

Robinson said: "I think the bit that worries me, being dead blunt about it, my understanding is St Helens Council has never funded Pride.

"For the council to turn round and say they're not going to support it, I worry there's something more sinister to that and it's about saying certain groups aren't welcome and that's bang out of line."

Robinson said Liverpool would "never have that approach" on his watch.

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