In their own words... services for coastal regeneration

Government departments and coastal regeneration

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)

The BIS is currently working with city regions to develop Multi Area Agreements (MAAs). These provide local partners with the opportunity to secure specific flexibilities in the national skills arrangements in order to meet local needs. For example, MAAs offer city region partnerships the opportunity to establish an employer-led Employment and Skills Board (ESB) with formal strategy-setting powers. These powers will allow ESBs to develop an 'employment and skills strategy' that will guide the Skills Funding Agency's (SFA) delivery. In areas where there are no MAA partnerships, the SFA Regional Director will work with local and regional partners to determine the skills priorities for the area.

In addition the BIS, through the Learning and Skills Council, delivers skills to support local economies, including coastal towns. These are delivered to employers through apprenticeships and Train to Gain, and to individuals through further education. In order to do this the Learning and Skills Council works with key partners such as:

• local authorities - to deliver provision for 16- to 18-year-olds;
• Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), the Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus - for those aged 19 and over.

The Council also focuses on meeting individuals' and employers' needs and the identified needs of the local economy. It works to:

• secure greater integration of employment and skills;
• prepare young people for the world of work;
• strengthen links between skills and regeneration;
• improve the flexibility and responsiveness of the skills system.

In this way the Council covers many of the coastal issues identified, especially those concerned with low employment levels, skills for local tourism, economic diversification and regeneration. Its activity impacts on infrastructure, educational attainment and and recruitment in coastal towns.

Looking to the future, planned changes to the machinery of government will result in the Council's responsibilities being taken over by a new Skills Funding Agency and a new learning agency for young people, alongside an increased role for local authorities.

Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)

The government invests almost £50 million a year in tourism marketing through VisitBritain. Each of VisitBritain's campaigns features a different location, but it aims to achieve a balanced regional spread overall and recognises the continuing importance of the seaside within British tourism.

Seaside destinations are promoted through VisitBritain's international offices, campaigns, public relations and websites, and the attractions of the seaside are included in a variety of themed campaigns. At the national Tourism Summit on 8 January 2009 in Liverpool, the prime minister emphasised the importance of taking advantage of the competitive tourism product available in the UK. In response to this, VisitBritain launched a £6.5 million marketing campaign in April, themed around 'value for money', to highlight cultural and historical heritage, landscape and natural heritage, vibrant cities and exciting sports and cultural events. Seaside destinations will benefit from this initiative.

In April, responsibility for marketing England within the UK moved from VisitBritain to VisitEngland. VisitEngland is working with the English Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), which have had responsibility for tourism in the regions since 2003, and which have developed regional tourism strategies and delivery structures based around marketing and branding, product quality assessment and investment, skills development, sustainable tourism frameworks and improved accessibility. There has been significant research into tourism and seaside destinations as part of RDA wider research programmes. The challenges faced by coastal towns are well understood in the context of regional economic strategies, led by the RDAs.

Longer term planning for the development of the visitor economy is contained in 'Winning: a tourism strategy for 2012 and beyond', which was released by the DCMS in October 2007. The strategy looks towards:

• maximising the benefits of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games opportunity;
• providing the best possible visitor welcome and showcasing the UK to the world;
• creating a platform for the longer term development and sustainability of the industry.

The government's SeaChange programme, led by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) on behalf of DCMS, has also boosted wider economic regeneration in coastal areas through investment in culture and heritage. Funding so far to 35 resorts allocated grants of £38 million to create new performance spaces, improve theatres, restore promenades, enable spectacular beach-front redesigns and provide new exhibition spaces.

Coastal towns have also benefited from other policies and programmes through cultural regeneration and investment in the built and historic environment. In October 2007, English Heritage published An Asset and a Challenge; Heritage and Regeneration in Coastal Towns in England which was accompanied by a conference in Hastings discussing some of the issues. The report brought together a range of case studies from around the coast, looking at drivers for success and the role of the historic environment as a dynamic resource for regeneration in seaside towns as diverse as Whitehaven and Margate. The case studies put an increased emphasis on 'local' bottom-up approaches to addressing longstanding regeneration issues, with many examples of effective partnership working across sectors, and bring out the continuing value and importance of tourism to coastal economies. The report is available on the Historic Environment Local Management website (www.helm.org.uk) along with other guidance on management of coastal heritage issues.

Some museums in coastal towns have benefited from regional museum investment through the Renaissance in the Regions programme, combined with Single Regeneration Budget and European Development cultural funding for deprived areas - including Hull, Plymouth, Bournemouth and Chatham. Hull also has the award-winning The Deep science centre and aquarium, which is a real boost to tourism in the town and was funded by the Millennium Commission. The Deep has continued to win tourism awards in 2008/9.

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) supports a wide variety of schemes in coastal towns, ranging from parks and regeneration, to museums and community projects. The main funding stream for this has been the Townscape Heritage Initiative, now in its eleventh year. Funding is allocated through local authorities in partnership with private businesses to improve historic street frontages and other street features. The HLF has given over £234 million to 864 projects in English coastal resorts to support their regeneration since 1997. This funding has included well over £100 million to coastal resorts in deprived areas, including Blackpool, Falmouth, Great Yarmouth, Hastings, North Shields, Penzance, Redcar, Saltburn-by-the Sea and Southport.

Some seaside towns are under threat from climate change and coastal erosion. The DCMS and English Heritage's policy on the historic environment at risk from coastal erosion has been outlined in Defra's consultation on coastal change policy, launched on 15 June 2009.

Tourism is only one of the employment sectors in such towns but remains significant, and has reportedly been boosted by the effects of the economic downturn affecting holiday choices. As the English Heritage report noted, one of the challenges for seaside resorts is to define a unique visitor offer for each town, whether focusing on culinary heritage tourism (e.g. Whitstable, Seahouses), iconic heritage sites or maritime associations (Whitby, Portsmouth, Battle Abbey), museums and art galleries (Margate, Falmouth) or adventure tourism (Hunstanton, Saltburn-by-the-Sea). Each offer should compete on quality as well as price.

Department for the environment, farming and rural areas (Defra)

Coastal change is a natural process that has and will continue to shape and mould our coastline. We know from the latest science on climate change that the risks of coastal erosion and flooding will increase over the next 100 years. We will defend where it is sustainable and affordable to do so, but it will not be possible to protect every piece of coastline.

Communities likely to be affected will need to start preparing for and managing change. Defra is working with communities and national and local partners to understand the risks associated with change and is developing a range of approaches to support community adaptation, particularly in those communities where it will not be possible to defend.

Significant progress has already been made with a programme of activities designed to support adaptation. These include the provision of better planning information through shoreline management plans, and support for households to protect against flood risk through a £5 million grants scheme.

The government published a new Coastal Change policy consultation on 15 June 2009, including the launch of a pathfinder programme to pilot a new coastal change fund of up to £11 million. Local authorities were able to bid to become pathfinders and use money from this fund to run their own adaptation schemes, working in partnership with their local communities. Money could be spent, for example, on restoring coastal footpaths, maintaining public car parks and beach access points at risk from erosion, or supporting re-routing of coastal roads.

The three-month consultation sought views on the way forward on providing financial help for demolition and moving costs to the few homeowners who in the next 20 years will lose their homes to erosion.

The consultation also included details of how communities can plan for change as well as looking at what managing change might mean for properties, businesses, local infrastructure and our historic and natural environment.

There is an important link between the Coastal Change policy and Communities and Local Government's (forthcoming) consultation on new planning policy for the coast. This aims to ensure that the impact of coastal change is taken into account at all stages of the planning process so that the government strikes the right balance between economic prosperity and reducing the consequences of coastal change on communities.

• Marine planning from Defra

The Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 introduces a marine planning system in UK waters for the first time in order to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development of the marine area. Marine planning will be one of the major functions of the new Marine Management Organisation (MMO), which will have responsibility for preparing marine plans in the English inshore and offshore regions in accordance with the policies and objectives set out by the government in the Marine Policy Statement.

The Marine Policy Statement will provide a clear framework for managing our seas, clarifying objectives and priorities, and directing decision-makers, users and stakeholders to a more strategic and efficient approach towards the sustainable development of marine resources. The marine plans that will be developed by the MMO will be in accordance with the Marine Policy Statement.

The MMO and other public authorities will then have a duty to take licensing and enforcement decisions in accordance with the Marine Policy Statement and the marine plans. The marine plans will extend to the mean high-water mark, with local authority boundaries going down to low water - this means that there will be an overlap between planning systems. This overlap will mean that the MMO and local authorities will need to work very closely. Indeed, the government is considering how best to enable local authorities to be fully involved in the development of marine plans.

• For more information on the Marine and Coastal Access Act, see www.defra.gov.uk/environment/marine/legislation/index.htm.
• For more information on the MMO, see www.mfa.gov.uk/mmo/planning.htm.

Department for Works and Pensions (DWP)

The DWP provides a national welfare system, and the support available to people who are out of work largely depends on the type of benefit they claim and their individual characteristics.

As a department, the DWP provides part of the overall help and support that people receive when they are out of work. Principally the policies cover the national offer - those elements that people expect should be the same regardless of where they live, such as access to benefits on a fair and consistent basis and minimum levels of help and support at different stages of unemployment or worklessness.

However, although it is a national offer it is delivered locally. Since benefit payments and labour market programmes are delivered direct to the individual, areas that have higher rates of worklessness and benefit dependency automatically receive a greater level of support from Jobcentre Plus (JCP) and through contracted provision such as the New Deal.

On top of the national system, there are a number of area-based initiatives supported by the DWP that target additional resource at the most deprived areas. These include the City Strategy Pathfinders, Local Area Agreements and Multi Area Agreements, and the Working Neighbourhoods Fund.

Partly as a result of the success of this approach, there is evidence that over the last decade the biggest improvements in employment and unemployment have been in areas that started in the worst position, leading to some narrowing in labour market disparities across the country. The Sub-National Review of Economic Development and Regeneration (SNR) recommended that, to maximise the impact of area funding, the government should focus on a smaller number of areas where deprivation is most acute. In pursuit of this recommendation, the government has targeted areas with the highest concentrations of worklessness - this includes some, but not all, coastal towns.

Data from the Annual Population Survey suggests that around 7 per cent of the UK population live in coastal towns, and 1 in 10 of those people live in wards that receive Working Neighbourhoods Funds.

Claimants of incapacity benefit (IB) or employment and support allowanc (ESA) in coastal towns will benefit from the national Pathways to Work programme which is available to everyone in Great Britain receiving IB or ESA.