Seaside Towns (Regeneration)

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on giving a focus to this debate by analysing with great skill many of the problems in seaside towns.

I apologise if I do not sound like my usual cheerful self, Mr Crausby. I have a disease that I am trying to throw off. Were I in the sun-kissed environment of Southport, I am sure that this would not be so. I represent Southport, which some people say is only technically a seaside resort, because we have so much beach that it takes some time to get to the sea. None the less, it has regenerated itself successfully in recent years and I am proud of what has been achieved there.

It might help new hon. Members if I rehearsed some things that were done in the previous Parliament. There has always been a group of Members of Parliament from seaside resorts who have got together to co-ordinate their efforts and put pressure on the Government to deal with their specific concerns. In the previous Parliament, we were helped by a report on coastal towns from the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. I sat on that Committee and I assure hon. Members that it was not easy to get Committee members to consider that matter, because they thought that it was a marginal issue and perhaps not sufficiently substantive to occupy a serious Committee. But that was done, and it was a surprising success.

Initially, the Government response to that report was fairly negative and bland. Phyllis Starkey, then Chair of the Committee, asked the Department to consider its response again and, to our surprise—there might have been a change of Minister—the second response was a great deal more positive. “Sea Change” funding appeared, which was to be administered by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and there was a clear cross-departmental focus on the problems of seaside resorts, which was wholly helpful. At about that time, regional development agencies were given responsibility for tourism and asked to look specifically at the regeneration of seaside towns, in addition to other topics that they are more familiar with, such as urban regeneration.

We found from the Committee’s report that it was hard to generalise about seaside towns, because they are all so different; they are not only in different parts of the country, but are different in character and history. Some concentrate on fishing and others on fairgrounds. There really are quite stark differences between many resorts. Skegness is not the same as, or anything like, Brighton, although it happens also to be on the sea.

A cluster of problems can be found in most seaside towns. They normally have an interesting past, but equally they have a rather uncertain future, and sometimes an uncertain view of where they should go. I visited Margate with the Select Committee, not too far away from the constituency of the hon. Member for South Thanet, and found a town torn in two directions. People wanted to go different ways. Some wanted the old fairground back and wanted Margate to become a place of pleasure rides, and others wanted to build on the Turner heritage, and the light of that area, and have a more aesthetic development. I am not sure which direction that area went in, but that difference of opinion crystallises a general view that I have formed, which is that all seaside resorts, if they are to go anywhere, need some view of what they are essentially like.

Southport has been successful because it has not tried to rival Blackpool and has a concept of itself as a classic resort, which is distinctive, and it plays to its strengths, such as Lord street and, generally speaking, the Victorian environment—and as a market brand, it works. But like many other places, it also has problems with its housing stock, particularly the hosts of large houses built for the days when thousands of people trooped there regularly to fill out boarding houses. That means that such places end up with a skewed housing stock. In some towns on the Kent coast, that housing stock is filled with a disproportionate number of benefit claimants. There are genuine housing problems. Sorting out seaside towns’ problems is not just about attending to tourism, but about attending to housing and transport, which is a huge issue for most seaside resorts because they are often difficult to access, having been built and grown up in the days when trains were the way forward.

In making changes and developing the character of these places, we should consider that often seaside towns are blessed with a disproportionate number of retired people. That has a good effect, in so far as it ensures that there is a relative level of prosperity in the town. However, in respect of implementing change, as people get older they possibly do not welcome change in the same way as people do when they are young. In resorts that we Committee members visited, we often found contentious political divisions about the character of development in the town. An additional problem is generated by the fact that a lot of people living and working in seaside towns work in the public sector and will feel the impact of public sector cuts.

Sorting out the problems of seaside towns is not something that should just be thrown at the door of the Minister with responsibility for tourism; it should be thrown at the Government as a whole, because it is a matter of cross-departmental working. The previous Government recognised that.

[Laura Sandys]

I totally agree that the issue of coastal towns is a multi-departmental one; I do not detract from that, but I feel strongly that we in coastal communities have to address each of the issues with each of the Ministers, and then bring that together through the cross-departmental committee. It is crucial that Ministers with responsibility, who can have an impact on our communities, understand that we face many challenges and find out what levers they can pull to assist us. The fact that the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), has responsibility for tourism and is the MP for a seaside town is a great asset for us.

[Dr Pugh]

Absolutely. I do not disagree with that analysis. Tourism genuinely helps in an extraordinary way. Too often in our tourist propaganda, we forget that our coasts are a fantastic asset. We tend to think of London, Edinburgh and bits in between, such as Stratford-upon-Avon. International publicity does not stress a strength that was well illustrated by the BBC programme. We have a fantastic coast, which is a fantastic asset, and we should make more of it. When I was at an embassy in France, I picked up propaganda for the north-west of England, hoping to find references to Southport, or at least Blackpool, but there were none. I found Oswaldtwistle, but I do not even know what it is, and I have lived in the north-west most of my life.

VisitBritain—I have said this before—has something to learn, but we must all learn how to deal with our new environment. If regeneration of seaside resorts is to progress, we will presumably have to work hand in hand with the new local enterprise partnerships, which will be centred predominantly in urban conurbations and will not have a natural feel for the problems of seaside resorts. They will need to be advised, instructed or directed not to leave out places that will, in most LEPs, be on the margins or the coast.

We must also recognise among ourselves—the community of coastal MPs—that whatever prospects we thought there were, before the time of austerity, of new transport links being delivered overnight have probably receded, and that that will not happen any time soon. We must work hard for our salvation. Most seaside resorts, their communities, and councils who understand the state of play recognise that. I believe that there is a role for the Government—this was the theme of the speech of the hon. Member for South Thanet—in sewing the pieces together and ensuring that good practice is spread, and in ensuring that when resorts have a clear vision of their own destiny and are prepared to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, they are given every encouragement to do so.