The Local View

East Lindsey

The East Lindsey district in Lincolnshire encapsulates the majority of the Lincolnshire coastline (the bit that sticks out on the right as you look at the map), with its two best known seaside towns of Skegness and Mablethorpe. This has been a favourite holiday destination over the years for visitors from Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Yorkshire, as well as further afield. Skegness continues to attract many thousands of visitors in the summer months, who come for a traditional bucket-and-spade holiday. However, the visitor spend is generally low value, and many tourism businesses run on small margins resulting in a lack of development and investment (in property or staff training). Other than tourism (hospitality and retail trades), there is still a reliance on agriculture (though no longer being a big employer), the public sector (probably accounting for a large proportion of our ‘knowledge economy’ jobs), and a range of small businesses. The result is a low-value economy – low average incomes, a continuation of seasonal work patterns, and a lack of high value-added business.

The peripherality of the area, and its lack of significant transport links (a 720 square mile area with no dual carriageways, so obviously no motorways) can be seen as a curse or blessing depending on your viewpoint! The district is large and rural – the coastal towns are relatively small, Skegness being the largest at around 21,000 (out of season). Despite some significantly deprived coastal wards, with obvious social and economic problems, the area has somehow missed out on the type of funding that has gone to places with a similar socioeconomic make-up. We do, however, have access to a very small proportion of European and regional funding ... but we don’t have the research-based, high-tech, knowledge economy businesses that have attracted the big bucks over the last three years.

One can see why we are not a prime businesses location. We cannot deny that physical access in and out of the district is not easy. However, we do offer companies lower wages and a cohort of well-educated people in a rural hinterland that has a high quality of life (safe, clean and uncongested). In terms of ‘access’, one of the biggest problems these days is the poor broadband access, a barrier to attracting small, creative and knowledge industries that we might otherwise look to offer an ideal location.

We do, of course, see many opportunities for our coastal towns, especially as part of a wider package with inland market towns and countryside. We want to work with our businesses to raise the overall quality of our tourism product. We are clearly offering something for the budget-conscious family who want a traditional seaside holiday (though that offer could still benefit from further investment and development), but there is a lot of potential for the tourist who wants to get away from it all, visit the nature reserves, and have a mix of coastal and inland experiences. We also believe that we should continue to find ways to meet the technical needs of those creative industries and businesses that don’t need a motorway to distribute their goods, and provide a place for people to live and work that fulfils their quality of life requirements (thousands of people still choose to move from large urban centres to small towns).

We are also aiming to take economic advantage of having large numbers of older people in the district – much higher than average because of the generally ageing population, but also because of inward migration. There are plans to become a ‘centre of excellence’ for care and hospitality, creating real expertise and best practice at the same time as meeting resident needs.

To achieve all this, we need to focus on ramping up the skills of the population. There is something of a polarisation in educational attainment, with some schools achieving very high levels of GCSEs, and some still pretty low. This results in lower than average numbers with higher level qualifications, as better qualified young people move out to study and stay away. This is obviously not a unique position – well qualified young people gravitate to cities everywhere, and often don’t return for many years. However, East Lindsey – population 130,000 and growing – does not have a further education college or any noticeable higher education provision. FE is delivered in the area, but through a plethora of different training providers in generally small-scale ventures. This makes it feel low-key and not always appealing, much less exciting. Accessing a broader range of choice means travelling significant distances on poor and infrequent transport (some young people have a 65-hour week, with three or four hours of travelling each day).

Aspirations are often low for those who stay, with low-paid seasonal jobs on offer. The area also attracts people with low skills, and other social problems, into the costal area, in the same way that many seaside towns do; and we have a steady supply of older people moving to the coast, often in poor health, who are creating an imbalance in the population.

Our difficulty in recruiting to specialist roles – planners, teachers, engineers, health specialists etc. – also suggests that we are not able to encourage people back to the area. We think that really focusing on a specialism we can be proud of will be good for all – young people, employees and businesses.

One of the biggest issues for East Lindsey’s coastal area is the equivalent of a town-sized population that is essentially ‘under the radar’, and contributes nothing to local service provider coffers. We have around 23,000 static caravans, apparently the largest area of caravans in Europe (not counting mobile holiday caravans that move in and out). While many of these will be rented to holidaymakers, we believe a large proportion provide semi-permanent homes, some on six-month sites, some on 10-month sites. These people do not pay council tax, and it is difficult to assess their contribution to the local economy.

We collect something in the region of £4 million in business rates from the site owners, and we are currently lobbying the government through the Sustainable Communities Act to retain a percentage of those rates to meet service needs, and to help regenerate the towns.

We would like to audit our caravans – to find out who lives there, their health (we think many older people have poor health), how long they stay, how many use caravans as alternatives to other accommodation, how many rely on caravans to be able to work in seasonal jobs, and so on. But it’s a big job that will require a significant resource. Neither are we sure of the implications of what we find.

The biggest long-term issue for our coast can be seen in the recent flood-risk maps, which have confirmed that much of our coastline is the third most ‘at risk’ area in the country. We don’t have crumbling cliffs (we don’t have cliffs!), but identified risk is increased breach and overtopping if we don’t keep building the flood defences higher and higher, which we think will be viewed as unsustainable. We must be one of the only areas with ‘minimum’ housing growth numbers at the moment, as we await the outcome of a large coastal study as part of the Regional Spatial Strategy partial review. The results of this study will inform whether we can (or cannot) build any more housing on our coast, despite a 5500-strong housing waiting list, with most people wanting to live on the coast – and figures which show us as having one of the fastest growing population. This is going to require some tough decisions in relation to spatial planning into the future, not just for the coast itself, but for the rest of this very rural district. So we need to start supporting the adaptation of our communities, both coastal and inland.

Perhaps we can, again, take advantage. The development of highly flood resilient buildings and developments will begin to be imperative for us soon. So we should get ahead of the game, and start to encourage innovative and imaginative solutions that we can share with others in the future. As in many places, we always need to try to see that potentiality!