Seaside Towns (Regeneration)

Mike Weatherley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on securing this debate. Just as tourism is often the reason for the existence of our seaside towns, it is often key to the ongoing regeneration and growth of those communities. The leisure and business facilities that attract inbound visitors also improve the economic and cultural lives of our residents. Anchor attractions, quality hospitality, retail facilities, festivals and events are key drivers in regenerating seaside towns, revitalising the image and refreshing the offering. I want to highlight a few ways in which the tourism sector can be a driver for the regeneration of seaside towns for the benefit of residents and visitors alike.

The first is cultural tourism. The reputation of seaside towns as backward and tacky is turned on its head when a more inspirational offering is added to the mix, such as has been done in Brighton and Hove. Recent years have seen a huge increase in the popularity of festivals and events, and Brighton and Hove can probably claim the title, “City of Festivals”, with its year-round calendar of major events incorporating music, arts and theatre, food and drink, sport and outdoor pursuits, fashion and retail, and many more.

Festivals are a relatively low-cost and self-contained way for seaside towns to reposition themselves. For example, the Brighton and Hove food and drink festival supports the entire supply chain from farm to fork, and creates year-round promotion of the city as a quality destination for food lovers. The Sussex fashion awards, which are scheduled for February 2011, are another example and had the good sense to invite me to be a judge. Brighton dome and festival is a pairing of a year-round cultural festival to provide joined-up thinking and resources. However, health and safety rules, licensing costs, and restrictions applied by local councils on outdoor events and carnivals can have the effect of de-incentivising organisers. As events are one of the key creators of a buzzing, thriving economy, this is one relatively straightforward area where local councils and the Government can act rapidly to allow the private sector to facilitate change.

[Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will know how lucky he is to represent a constituency that is so close to mine in the great tourist resort of Brighton and Hove. It has nearly 8 million visitors a year who provide £0.75 billion to the economy every year, and 14,000 people are employed in the tourism industry. He is right to say that tourism is not just about the beach and the sea. There is a variety of important cultural attractions in the city that we represent. Things such as music and arts, which I know are dear to my hon. Friend’s heart, are important drivers, together with traditional attractions such as the Palace pier.

I would like to raise one point, and I thank my hon. Friend for allowing this interruption—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Weatherley]

I thank my hon. Friend for that speech, and for taking the impact of most of my speech away. If I may, I will return to the point about transport in a few minutes.

Unfortunately, many seaside towns in the UK have problems managing the night-time economy. Many councils and residents look with disdain at bars and clubs and their patrons, and a cultural shift is required to move on and recognise the economic benefits of that sector. Within Brighton and Hove, the night-time economy raises a figure in excess of £400 million a year, which goes a long way towards the figure mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet. A thriving night-time economy is one of the strongest draws for visitors to the coast and, increasingly, for the “silver mature” market, which includes myself. The night-time economy should be embraced and helped, not legislated against. Extended licensing hours, for example, have generally benefited the city, rather than had a negative effect.

One of the main blocks to feel-good tourism in the UK is the continued lack of investment in the infrastructure of seaside towns. That leads to limited and expensive parking and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby) noted, inadequate rail facilities. Due to necessary but never-ending engineering works, Brighton and Hove is often inaccessible by direct rail at weekends, and the road works and lack of road capacity result in endless traffic jams at peak times. The cumulative effect of that has a negative impact on visitors, and the lack of investment in city centre parking in Brighton and Hove is a major obstacle to future development. The past decade of discouraging car use was a mistake; an integrated transport system is required, rather than forcing through one form of transport.

Congestion charging says to visitors, “Please do not come here.” Let us hope that that idea is never implemented in Brighton and Hove, which depends on welcoming visitors rather than turning them away. The same applies to parking fines. Car parking should be a council priority when looking at investment in buildings and other attractions. I would also like to see proposals for the monorail along our seafront progressed. That would be an innovative scheme, and a first for the country. Such proactive development will boost the importance and desirability of the city as a destination.

I welcome the coalition shift towards having more planning decisions taken locally, and I hope that that does not lead to fewer planning approvals. Our record in Brighton and Hove over the past 20 years may be attributed to the proposal of inappropriate schemes, and to intransigent developers trying to foist their schemes on the city. It is also due to a cumbersome planning permission regime.

Although it is important to protect the unique Georgian and Victorian architectural heritage of our seaside towns, which have no equivalent in the world, it is equally important to see them as living, breathing spaces with economies to support. We need to get the balance right between protecting the best bits, and being bold enough to replace the mediocre.

In summary: it is time to regenerate. Tourism is vital to my constituency, and we should encourage investment in destination hotels and attractions—the relaxation of some planning controls would help. We should also embrace the night-time economy, avoid excessive legislation and red tape, improve transport infrastructure, especially car parking, and recognise the importance of the tourism sector with tax breaks for small companies. For example, I would like to see the national insurance scheme currently proposed for the rest of the country extended to those cities in the south that require an occasional boost to tourism. Such issues are vital for Hove and Portslade, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and to working with the Government.