Politics
The House | We need a minister for the seaside and to learn the lessons from Brighton
Deckchairs on Brighton pier (Alamy)
3 min read
I love the seaside. I’ve never lived more than a few miles away from it and I feel its pull whether I’m at home or away.
My home village of Great Bentley was five miles from Brightlingsea, and I spent seven years at school in Clacton. I couldn’t wait to escape… to Brighton.
A few years after leaving Sussex University, I became leader of Brighton and Hove council – a job I loved and did for 13 years. In the 70s and 80s, like most UK seaside towns, Brighton had all the feel and reality of decline. Playwright Keith Waterhouse once characterised it as having “the air of a town that is perpetually helping the police with their inquiries”.
The struggles of coastal communities are linked to their peripheral nature and the erosion of Britain’s industrial base
Today, Brighton is often held up as the UK’s most successful seaside city, one that others seek to copy. The sad truth is that few have succeeded in replicating its revival.
Back in 2019, I chaired a groundbreaking House of Lords inquiry, The Future of Seaside Towns. Our report found poor health outcomes, lower educational attainment, weak transport links and fragile digital connectivity. Business formation rates lagged behind national averages. Public and private investment were both thin on the ground. These communities also experienced the flight of the professional middle classes, which reduced the services of bankers, accountants, lawyers, doctors.
Broadly speaking, the struggles of coastal communities are linked to their peripheral nature and the erosion of Britain’s industrial base.
The attractiveness of the coast remains, of course, as does the love affair with seaside attractions. Nowhere in Britain is further than 70 miles away from the coast, and 36 per cent of us live within five kilometres of the sea.
So, what does a successful seaside look like? How do we restore pride and identity to these wonderful, quirky communities?
Brighton offers some pointers. In the 50s, it was a semi-industrial town with specialist engineering, a major locomotive works and a large factory-based workforce. Alongside that sat a thriving holiday trade: B&Bs, prestigious hotels and a reputation for the salty and saucy.
By the 1970s the factories had closed, the loco works were gone, and the holiday trade was shrinking. Brighton had the look of the seedy and rundown about it. Its recovery in the 80s and 90s was built around the knowledge economy, conferencing, the arts and latterly the digital economy. Today, its universities and colleges are home to 35,000 students, and the arts, cultural and digital economy has led to it having one of the highest business start-up rates outside London. Brighton now has the highest disposable income growth rate in the UK.
As a prescription, Brighton’s route to regeneration cannot be universal, but some of the elements are transferable. Margate, Bournemouth, Folkestone and parts of Cornwall have used this formula to renew and reinvent. Coastal communities should improve transport and digital connections, seek a mix of public and private investment, and put money into the arts. They should develop a learning culture, a knowledge economy (HE and FE) and make sure clear and decisive political leadership is built around a strong vision for place.
Our 2019 Lords report argued that government has a decisive role in shaping successful coastal futures. But we found a bewildering patchwork of funding streams and too little capital for long-term infrastructure renewal. When we revisited the issue in 2022, little had changed.
We argued then for a voice in government – a seaside or coastal minister – to focus Westminster’s thinking and produce a more coherent strategy for regeneration. That need has not gone away. Coupled with a strong devolution settlement, this would enable the left-behind places to tend the constant garden that is regeneration and renewal.
Lord Bassam is a Labour peer
