Decades Long Southport Councillor and Ex-Mayor Richard Hands to be Celebrated in Civic Funeral

The civic funeral of former councillor, Richard Hands, will take place at Liverpool Road Methodist Church Birkdale at 12 noon tomorrow.  Richard (77) was a much loved local councillor who represented Birkdale between 1986 and his retirement due to ill health in 2021. 

He moved with his family in the 1980s to Southport from Great Yarmouth and threw himself into local community action and politics winning Birkdale from the Conservatives in 1986 and holding it until stepping down in 2021 following complications from cardiac surgery.

He served as Mayor of Sefton (2006-7), as a councillor for 35 years, was a governor at Birkdale Primary School and involved in many aspects of his adopted town, supporting both Norwich and Southport FC (he was a regular at Haig Avenue). He helped set up the Save the Pier Group in the 90s which saved the Pier from demolition and eventually became the Pier Trust.

According to his friend and former colleague Cllr.John Pugh, “The town and the Council was seen by Richard as such a central part of his life that it is fitting it culminates in a civic funeral.”