Seaside Towns (Regeneration)

Gloria De Piero Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on securing this important debate. She spoke passionately about the issues, which are vital to the lives and livelihoods of many people in her constituency, as they are to the people and economies of many other seaside towns up and down Britain. I hope that she and the other hon. Members who spoke will use their influence with their parties to bring the issue to the attention of the Government, and to press for the necessary steps to secure the future of our seaside towns and ensure that the regeneration of seaside and coastal areas does not slip off the agenda.

Tourism is incredibly important for the survival and regeneration of British seaside towns. It creates huge numbers of jobs, both for people directly employed in the industry and for many thousands more working in related industries. Millions of people visit the seaside every year—after London, Blackpool and Scarborough are the country’s second and third most popular destinations for overnight stays. In total, about 25% of domestic tourism is made up of people taking holidays at seaside and coastal towns. I have learned that Cleveleys is an attractive destination. The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) spoke about the town’s accessibility, and I shall certainly look at the website he mentioned.

Many hon. Members noted that tourism alone cannot be held responsible for ensuring the future of coastal communities, but it has also been noted that it is essential to start with the industry that made these places popular and, in many cases, famous and well loved. That means supporting tourism and directing support to seaside towns that rely on it as an economic lifeline. As the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) said, it means adopting a cross-departmental approach to help seaside and coastal towns tackle the problems that they face, and ensure that they remain, or return to being, places in which people want to live and work, as well as visit.

The coalition Government must take steps to end the cycle of seasonality that particularly affects coastal communities and to tackle joblessness and youth unemployment. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) spoke about the importance of the tourism industry in providing jobs for his constituents. The coalition should also act to provide better-quality and more affordable housing; to support the delivery of strong public services and infrastructure; to take steps to reduce the anti-social behaviour and crime that blights so many of our seaside towns; and to safeguard the growth of small and medium-sized businesses. The amusement industry, to which the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) referred, falls within that sector.

I have spoken to members of the tourism industry, and I was told this morning that, after a period of neglect and decline, it was the previous Labour Government who ensured sustained investment in seaside towns, delivered in particular through the regional development agency, which the coalition has scrapped. The previous Labour Government backed coastal tourism and worked hard to ensure that the British seaside was becoming, once again, an attractive place for people to live, work and enjoy simple pleasures, such as the beach and the sea, and popular visitor attractions.

Earlier this year, Labour launched its strategy for seaside success, which included £5 million to help the most deprived seaside authorities, building on its record in government of targeting an additional £127 million of funding on coastal local authorities to help them meet the particular challenges that seaside towns can face. The hon. Members for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby), for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) discussed additional provision and activities in our seaside towns. Labour’s strategy also involved a “seasiding” campaign to promote festivals, other cultural initiatives and the non-seasonal economy, and to support the development of heritage attractions, for example, the renewal of historic piers. Those things are needed to make our seaside towns year-round destinations. The campaign involved plans to improve infrastructure, tackle disproportionate levels of deprivation in seaside towns, and work with regional and local bodies to ensure that seaside towns and seaside tourism could flourish. Hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), talked about the problem of deprivation in such areas.

The coalition’s cuts to RDAs and the budgets of organisations set up to promote tourism will hit hard and hurt at a time when the industry needs support, particularly in seaside towns that still depend heavily on tourism. The Government, from the Prime Minister downwards, have yet to show that they have the plans to secure the future of our seaside towns. Yes, we have heard lots of warm words about the state of seaside tourism in Britain, but I argue that they are simply an endorsement of Labour’s record, rather than a strategy that the Government will pursue while in office.

The Minister has taken the trouble to visit Britain’s seaside towns, which is to be welcomed, but we have yet to hear his findings, and we look forward to doing so. If the Government are to support seaside towns and continue Labour’s work to regenerate such areas, the coalition must tell people, as the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) said, how seaside holidays and attractions in coastal towns will be advertised to appeal to visitors, following the 34% cuts to VisitBritain and VisitEngland and the 32% cut to the English Heritage grant. As the hon. Member for Southport said, what role will local enterprise partnerships play now that the Government are going to abolish regional development agencies? Will LEPs have any responsibility for the regeneration of our seaside towns?

The hon. Members for Newton Abbot and for Ceredigion referred to the impact on the tourism industry of the VAT rise to 20%. Has there been an impact assessment of its effects on our seaside and coastal towns? If so, I would like to see it. In short, what is the Government’s strategy for ensuring that tourism is supported so that it can continue to play an integral part in our seaside and coastal towns? Without Government support, British seaside towns and the people who live and work in them face another period of decline.

It is not enough to rely, as the Conservative party so often does, on the power of the private sector. I spoke to Peter Hampson, director of the British Resorts and Destinations Association, this morning, and he shares my concerns that, if the challenges facing seaside resorts are not addressed, if resorts are not protected and developed, and if budgets to attract tourists to them are consistently cut, then people will simply go elsewhere.

The coalition needs to answer a question for the tourism industry: the people whose livelihoods rely on seaside and coastal tourism and those who have chosen to make their lives at the British seaside. How much of the overall spend on promoting tourism will be directed to seaside towns? What plans do the Government have to ensure that work to support and regenerate seaside towns will continue? How can the Government expect the private sector to invest in seaside towns without seeing a clear lead from Government and the public sector? Without a clear and cohesive public policy to support seaside tourism and seaside towns, the risk is that places such as Ramsgate in the constituency of the hon. Member for South Thanet and other coastal resorts, about which we have heard a lot today, will decline once again.