Coastal issues and the Select Committee Inquiry into coastal towns

There are three barriers to overcome when seeking to raise the profile of coastal town problems. The first is quantitative – that is to say, national statistics have diluted coastal resort problems within large area analysis. The second is time and scale – the economic decline of our seaside resorts has not been as dramatic, nor as political or unionised, as the closures of coalfields, shipyards and other historic manufacturing sectors. 

The third barrier, as has been vividly described, is emotive! Our love of the coast and our attachment to the seaside often make it difficult for negative messages to penetrate the layers of national nautical affection. It is rather like a reluctant family being told that a loud and favourite uncle, who filled our childhood with lollies and laughter, in reality has some rather dodgy habits and even more dodgy relationships. As with seaside resorts, we simply do not want to know.

A spring tide of satisfaction, therefore, greeted the news in late 2005 that there was going to be a Select Committee Inquiry (SCI) into coastal towns. This was particularly satisfying for those coastal MPs, local authorities and coastal networks who for many years had been articulating the need for national action to address the growing socioeconomic problems in seaside resorts. Not least among these were: the MPs for Sefton and Blackpool South, Dr John Pugh and Gordon Marsden; the LGA Coastal Special Interest Group, whose On the Edge: The Coastal Strategy started the decade with a call for ‘integrated solutions for coastal problems’;¹ and the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) team at Sheffield Hallam whose coastal economy research of 2003 provided a framework for analysis.

When Dr Phyllis Starkey MP, the chair of the then ODPM Select Committee Inquiry into Coastal Towns , reported their findings in February 2007 to a spray-lashed room of coastal practitioners at the Spa Complex in Scarborough, Max Jaffa – the once long-serving bandleader at the venue – would have had little difficulty in recruiting a Hallelujah! chorus.

However, the jubilation was cut short when the government dismissed the report and its recommendations.