Coastal Towns

Ian Swales Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

My constituency covers the part of the north Yorkshire coast that includes the vibrant town of Redcar and the pretty village of Marske. It is also the east end of the Tees valley city region. One issue for coastal areas such as mine is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) said in his introductory remarks, identity and vision. Whether the coastal town wants to be a resort, a day trip leisure destination, a dormitory town or even an industrial centre has major consequences for planning its transport, regeneration, accommodation provision, business development, housing, the environment and so on. I see all that in my constituency. When I see a list of the issues that coastal towns have, I can usually identify with pretty well all of them.

Studies show that the most successful coastal towns have certain characteristics. They have an enterprise culture. Many are close to major population centres, which helps them to regenerate. They have good transport and communication links. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) talked about the revival in Kent, and good transport links can turn coastal towns into dormitory towns; the Government should make that a policy target. Successful coastal towns have access to business opportunities and understand the wider area in which they sit.

Things have been improving in my area under the Government. The steel works have restarted in Redcar, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has invested £30 million in the seafront, which has provided a new promenade. We have had leisure investment. The Tees Valley local enterprise partnership has been active and successful. The regional growth fund has been pouring money into my area at a rate five times greater than under the old regional development agency. Many new industries are active, business formation is up 19% in the past year and we are about to get a new oil and gas college. I could go on. Unemployment is down by more than 35% since 2010.

I agree that we need to have aspiration, ambition and a positive outlook for our coastal towns. There is still a lot more to do in my area, in particular on entrepreneurship and skills development. In the last table I saw, Redcar and Cleveland had the lowest number of entrepreneurs per head in the country. That is certainly a target for our part of the coast. We also need to make our enterprise zone function. There was inertia after it was given to an outfit called Onsite, which was not enterprising and did not want to do anything.

I am optimistic about my area. There are various things that the Government need to do. They need to continue with the LEP model, which serves my part of the world extremely well, although I accept it may not do so everywhere. They must continue to support job creation in areas of the country, such as Redcar, where we have economic capacity—people, houses and school places—without the need for massive extra investment. It is sensible for the country to invest in those areas. They must give Tees valley the European money that it qualifies for. It has a status that results in a fair amount of money coming in, so let us keep it coming directly to the area.

We have benefited from the coastal communities fund. I ask the Government to look closely at favouring areas in which the licence income is generated. We have 27 turbines just off our beach, in addition to gas pipelines, cables and so on. That is where a lot of the coastal community money is generated, so let us make sure we get our fair share of it back again. We need an electrified rail line in the Tees valley and to Middlesbrough—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order.