Enterprising the coastline

This chapter explores the challenges and opportunities faced by coastal towns in stimulating enterprise and entrepreneurial activity, and the policy and practice context for the delivery of business support to assist individuals and communities in starting and sustaining a business.

Rather than facing different challenges and problems, a number of policy reviews have suggested that there is a need for coastal towns to foster greater levels of innovativeness in developing responses within current policy and support environments. While there are examples of good practice within coastal towns in supporting enterprise development, there is a striking degree of similarity in the responses of the practitioner community.

In a recent review of developments within the 20 Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) areas, Regeneris Consulting highlights very few differences in the enterprise development programmes introduced between areas such as South Tyneside, Blackpool, St Helens and Hastings.¹ As outlined within the government’s response to the Communities and Local Government Committee on coastal towns, such evidence somewhat undermines claims of ‘difference’ – and hence the need for different sources of funding and targeted regeneration policies and programmes.

There is a general lack of evidence and insights by which to review the authenticity of such claims in terms of the development and promotion of enterprise in coastal towns. A number of recent studies have highlighted a relatively limited evidence base around the specific nature of the challenges and opportunities facing coastal towns. Fothergill notes that:²

The present evidence base is also patchy with a distinct dearth of reliable information on some key issues ... Some of the existing information (on population and employment for example) could also do with up-dating.

Within the context of understanding and supporting enterprise development, there is a lack of insights related to the dynamics and trends in coastal towns and the ways in which enterprise can be effectively supported. This chapter will address this gap.

In this chapter, enterprise will refer to a set of personal tendencies (including creativity, responsiveness, and need for autonomy) and behaviours that can be manifested in a variety of different contexts, while entrepreneurship refers to the process by which an individual or group of individuals start and manage a new venture that involves risk-taking, originality, spotting gaps in the market or new productive processes.

In terms of a coastal town, this Handbook is concerned with the socioeconomic conditions of our English seaside resorts; that is to say, towns on the coast that came into being to provide accommodation and leisure and still contain large tourism infrastructure.