A luxury Merseyside resort and spa loved by celebrities is set for a major transformation. Formby Hall Golf Resort and Spa, which hosted Taylor Swift during her run of Anfield gigs in June 2024 and was the location for Liverpool FC's title celebrations four years prior, was purchased by Lisbon-based property company the Harland and Poston Group in December and that firm intends to renovate the site.
Established in 1996, the four-star hotel and spa currently boasts an 18-hole championship golf course, nine-hole Woodhey Dunes course and a PGA Academy set across 200 acres of parkland off Southport Old Road in Formby. The redevelopment plan includes 106 refurbished rooms and a new wedding venue with 24 lodges.
The new rooms will be delivered in phases through to 2027 and will complement a complete gym renovation, a new food and drink offering, as well as a refurbished event and leisure spaces, with improved reception and lobby areas.
According to Harland and Poston, the phased programme will begin in September 2025 with additional guest rooms, gym modernisation and rolling food and drink renovation, followed by the introduction of the wedding lodges in 2027. The hotel is expected to reach full 'stabilisation' in 2028, according to the firm.
At an event at the resort on Friday, David Poston, CEO of the Harland and Poston Group, told the ECHO why his company chose to invest in Formby.
He said: "We were wanting to move into the UK market and we were looking for assets. We'd moved into hotels in Portugal and we wanted a hospitality asset here.
"We had a couple of conversations with three or four different banks and one of them presented us the portfolio that Formby Hall was part of. We went through that portfolio, we went through several hotels and this one jumped out at us.
"It's really iconic, there have been a lot of celebrity weddings here, Taylor Swift was here last year. It has a feel to it - where it's situated.
"It's got a lot of great golf courses around it, so it has a lot of potential in regards to not just the course here, but for people to come and stay and play the likes of Royal Birkdale."
The Harland and Poston Group is looking for £27m investment in the site to help fund the expansion. It is hosting events for potential private investors and Formby Hall members.
About his firm's plans for the site, Mr Poston added: "It's a stunning place, it's a stunning asset to have on your portfolio. For us, we wanted to buy something operational.
"We spent the last eight years investing in pieces of dirt, effectively, that we were going to turn into something. We wanted to change and have an asset that is already fully operational that we can then improve upon.
"I think there's huge potential here, especially from the leisure side as well. We're making a plan for that.
"But from the hotel side - 76 rooms is not enough. If you want this to run and be operational and profit properly, you need 100-plus rooms.
"That's why the first thing we did was look at how we could turn it into 100-plus. The amount of empty meeting space the place had is perfect.
"A new wedding and conference venue allows us to add another 30-plus rooms inside. Then the lodges should take us to around 130 overall."
Previous planning applications for expansion on the site included a new leisure area and lodges but these did not come to fruition. Mr Poston said Harland and Poston intends to submit a new planning application for the wedding venue in due course.