The decline of England’s seaside resorts is an issue that has been hiding in plain sight for decades – but routinely met with indifference by those in power. Madeleine Bunting considers five trends that have contributed to the deprivation of these towns – and looks at possible paths to turning their fortunes around.

The seaside resort holds a powerful place in the English imagination, often used in films, novels and music videos as the stage on which to project anxieties and aspirations. One of the most common tropes is of decline, nostalgia and faded glory. These resorts are therefore full of contradiction: they promote themselves as pleasurable places for fun and entertainment, yet the suffering and deprivation is often all too evident only a few streets away from the amusement arcades, attractions and sea front.

Seaside deprivation has been an issue of regional inequality which has been hiding in plain sight, and it has been accompanied by a striking degree of complacency and indifference. The poorest wards in the UK are in seaside resorts (such as in Clacton and Blackpool) yet the plight of resorts has never provoked the kind of political engagement and public debate that the inner cities attracted in the 80s, and it does not fit into the current debates around the North/South divide. The House of Lords’ pioneering study of the issue in 2019 (with a follow-up in 2023) stressed how many in seaside resorts felt their concerns were ignored or neglected by central government. Under-resourced local authorities have been forced to compete for small pots of government funding while attempting to tackle two considerable challenges: how to ameliorate the entrenched poverty, and at the same time, imagining a new future for towns whose future prosperity cannot depend solely on tourism.

In my book, The Seaside, England’s Love Affair, I call this pattern of social and economic decline England’s “salt fringe”, analogous to the US rust belt as a process of deindustrialisation and social decline. It afflicts towns on every English coastline from Hastings on the south coast to Clacton on the east and Weston-Super-Mare on the west. At the root of this plight is the challenge of dealing with an exceptional combination and concentration of five trends.

Five factors giving rise to the decline of English seaside towns

Firstly, wage levels in seaside resorts are amongst the lowest in the country, in part because these towns’ economies are dominated by care and hospitality, traditionally low paid sectors, and there is a lot of seasonal work.

Secondly, the population of many seaside resorts is ageing; Minehead and Skegness are the oldest in the country. A pattern of people retiring to the coast combines with an exodus of young people leaving coastal towns in search of better jobs. This is part of what drives a pattern of ill health in these towns that has been highlighted by Chris Whitty, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer. High rates of long-term health conditions are exacerbated by loneliness when retirees find themselves without the communal and family support of their home town.

Thirdly, there is a persistent problem of low educational achievement and low aspiration in many coastal towns (it’s also hard to recruit and retain good quality teachers). The result is often low levels of social mobility with unskilled youngsters effectively caught in a trap of low pay. Minehead, for instance, has the lowest social mobility in the country.

Fourthly, one of the most striking aspects of my visits to over 40 resorts while writing the book was how a dysfunctional housing market was crippling these towns’ search for a future. In places like Torquay, there is little affordable housing and local employers were struggling to fill jobs because people couldn’t afford to live in the town. AirBnB and second homes have decimated the rental sector, with several councils in the South west having declared a housing emergency as locals are forced out of places where they have lived all their lives for lack of affordable housing. Places like Blackpool and Morecambe, meanwhile, face the opposite problem. Former hotels and boarding houses have been sold off to developers to be made into cheap bedsits – which acts as a magnet for people down on their luck in the surrounding region and who are looking for a second chance.

Related to this is the fifth trend: that seaside towns attract a highly vulnerable population, whether its people coming out of prison, fleeing domestic violence or struggling with substance abuse and mental ill-health. Around 8,000 people move to Blackpool every year and of that figure, around two thirds are on Universal Credit and nearly half are single males. While absentee landlords reap large profits from buy-to-let properties, public services – the NHS, social services, police – come under intense strain given the concentration of vulnerability in these areas.

Possible paths to a brighter future for our seaside towns

Taken together, these trends paint a picture of the harsh realities facing many seaside towns today. They are struggling to maintain and reinvigorate their offer as tourist attractions at the same time as coping with myriad social challenges. Local authorities have few resources either in terms of people or budget to take on the task of economic diversification, which is a tough sell to investors because of their peripherality on the coast, while Government “Levelling Up” funding emphasises productivity which often puts seaside towns at a disadvantage given their preponderance of low productivity sectors such as care and hospitality.

The salt fringe is a “wicked problem”, in the words of Lord Jim Knight, who has spent many years reflecting on the challenges as MP for Weymouth and also sat on the House of Lords Select Committee’s inquiry into seaside resorts told me. It’s the kind of policy challenge which requires engagement from multiple partners and leadership from central government with a dedicated ministerial brief.

Where might we look for a way forward for these towns?

One is raising political awareness about how important this problem is. While seaside resorts may represent a relatively small percentage of the national population, they still attract huge numbers of visitors; 13 million visit Blackpool every year and 4 million visit Skegness. These places are valued and often play a key role in people’s well-being and life satisfaction. Better data could also improve awareness and debate about the issue: coastal poverty has a distinctive pattern of clustering in pockets of a few streets that is not picked up at the level of the Lower Super Output Area. A common plea amongst researchers, therefore, is for more granular data.

In terms of investing infrastructure, the key area for Knight is connectivity: good public transport and good digital connections. Since Covid, a possible new future for some seaside resorts has emerged with the rise of home working and the increasing number of young families moving out of urban centres such as London and Manchester in search of more affordable housing. Some towns in Thanet such as Ramsgate and along the South coast such as Worthing are already seeing the benefits. The great success story of Brighton and Hove’s regeneration, pinned in large part around a sizable higher education sector, demonstrates the importance of good rail links.

We can also take heart from the countless examples around the coast of enterprising and dedicated community groups mobilising around local heritage and welfare projects such as soup runs, food banks and creative projects to inspire youngsters. Even more ambitious, the Campus for Future Living in Mablethorpe is a fascinating response to the prevalence of poor health on this Lincolnshire coast involving Lincoln medical school and a café for careworkers. At the other end of the country, the new visitor attraction of Eden North in Morecambe will be a major coup for the town with plans for a spectacular building akin to Cornwall’s Eden Project, while East Quay in the West Somerset port of Watchet combines major art gallery with workshops, accommodation, café and studios. It’s these kinds of inspiring projects which offer a way to start reimagining how England might continue to enjoy its much loved coasts.

Madeleine Bunting’s book, The Seaside, England’s Love Affair, will be out in paperback in May 2024.

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s). They do not represent the position of LSE Inequalities, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

Image credits: Banner image by Bob Deering via Shutterstock. Other photos by Madeleine Bunting.