Getting my fix of seaside towns to re-energise after a hard winter of #communityorganisers and the birth of Locality. Last summer’s Seaside Tour (see earlier blogs) took in Southend, Southwold, Yarmouth, Cromer, Scarborough, Southport, Blackpool and St Anne’s, before returning to Hastings. In October I stood through the night watching the devastating Hastings Pier fire. November was absorbed working with Angela Davis on the Heritage Lottery Fund and with Keith Sadler on the Communitybuilders – putting together a future for the People’s Pier. Since December I’ve been working with Seasider and Destination Alliances on the STEP, the Seaside Towns Enterprise… Read more…

I liked this piece ‘The Big Society or A Big Society’ by Charlie Mansell – thoughtful and almost funny in its own search for definitions while recognising that definition-hunting is procrastination. The problem on the ground (IMHO) is the same as it ever was – lost in translation. Back in 2001 when the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal emerged after an extensive research phase which brought parts of government into contact with lots of practitioners, I thought it was superb. The ideas of ‘bending the mainstream’ (ie using all the big public money rather than the funny money associated with… Read more…

I’m delighted to be able to say that there has been a great deal of interest in the emerging idea of a Seaside Towns Enterprise Partnership (STEP). An initial draft letter to government has been circulated to some senior figures in the private, public and civil society sectors – a different ‘type’ of person in each of 6 seaside towns – to gauge opinion and start the ball rolling. Everyone has said they’re interested, although there are some concerns that it might ‘muddy or dilute’ the county and sub-regional pitches for Local Enterprise Partnerships. 56 of these were received by… Read more…

Eddie Bridgeman, director of both Meanwhile Space and Seasider, got all shy this week about being featured on the Regen and Renewal website this week talking about the Seasider pop-up shop in Camden. He actually did a great job and you can hear him by visiting their. I love the fact that he’s waving the ‘Everyone Loves Hastings Pier’ flier all through the interview! Eddie and I were in a meeting at the Department for Education about the potential around Free Schools. We were joined by Annemarie Naylor of the Asset Transfer Unit so as well as the possible options… Read more…

The #seasider tour was amazing. I’m going to try to do it twice a year – there’s still plenty of seaside to talk to. I did some great North Welsh coast trips a few years ago and I’ve had some fabulous days in Margate, but I want to do it properly. The DTA’s role is all about ‘pollination’ – going from trust to trust, town to town, council to council, business to business, listening, absorbing, making connections, sharing information and ideas, helping to weave a big picture from all the local stories. This level of fine-grain understanding will be a… Read more…

“Blackpool is different”. This is the message coming through from all sectors. I’m fascinated by the hostility to Brighton, precocious little sister with an irritating habit of fluking it and marrying a millionaire. Hastings has more right to be angsty about its big, brash neighbour down the coast, but I think it hardly registers with us. I know that very few people in my home town really want us to be ‘the new Brighton’ anyway. It’s a bit like the Deptford response when excitable journalists talk about ‘the new Hoxton’! I LOVE BLACKPOOL. I love the way it’s such hard… Read more…

An early morning train drops me in Southport where Mike Swift, Director of Southport Pier Trust and Angela, my fellow-trustee from the Hastings Pier & White Rock Trust are waiting. Angela has hot-footed it from Hastings, leaving at 4am and arriving just after 8am. When their pier was in a sorry state back in the early 1990s Mike used to work for the Chamber of Commerce and over the years he liaised closely with the council’s chief executive to achieve its rescue and redevelopment using a combination of heritage lottery (HLF), private redevelopment contributing Section 106, as well as European… Read more…

Have seen more piers in the past 48 hours than most people do in a year but now we’re busy writing a proposal for Hastings Council in the middle of the night (due at midnight!). So will have to blog tomorrow about Southport and Blackpool. Here’s a couple of pics of Southport in the meantime…

So what’s Bradford doing in my Seasider Tour? Well, you have to get across country somehow and there’s no better stop-off than Bradford, meeting up with Gideon Seymour from FABRIC and Nigel Rice from Bradford MBC and then staying over with my colleague Hugh Rolo, DTA’s Head of Assets & Investment. There’s good news and bad news. The good is the fantastic work that FABRIC is doing with meanwhile use of a never-before-let shop unit in Centenary Square, now a POP-UP arts and gallery space with the smallest cinema in the world out back. I love the way when we… Read more…

Have just waved off DH, Daughter and Dog who are heading south now while I take the train cross-country towards Blackpool – top dog of seaside resorts. If Blackpool is King of them all, Scarborough must take the title of the Queen. Its natural and built assets are second to none – two beautiful sweeping bays with green cliffs sinking (in some cases literally) down to the sea with 15 acres of ruined castle the head-point where they meet. Our hotel, the Castle-by-the-Sea, has a fantastic location high above both bays and is truly dog-friendly, with sliding doors out to… Read more…

The Tour continued first thing on Monday morning with a trip to Cromer – home of crabs and candyfloss. After an age spent going round in circles trying to park I meet some colleagues by the pier in the driving rain. Huddled under the entrance we stare at the pier psyching ourselves up for a dash along its length. I’m quite a pier connoisseur (in case you haven’t guessed!) but this one feels truly scary, with lengthwise planks, slippery in the wet, big gaps between them. I’m sure it’s fine (the remedial works are minor compared to our Hastings challenges)… Read more…

I can officially confirm that Southwold is a very pretty place. A lovely mix of old buildings, well-kept green spaces, a clean sandy beach and a very well-run pier. The built environment reminded me of a recent trip to Arundel, West Sussex – a place where money doesn’t so much grow on trees as appears to be lovingly stitched onto each leaf by stockbrokers’ wives with too little to do. Southwold is more family-oriented but equally financially relaxed. A friendly woman in one of the pier’s pleasant but pricey shops told me that 70% of Southwold is second homes so… Read more…

Here begins the Seaside Tour… Started in Hastings (ie home), by hosting a 24-hour field trip by the Asset Transfer Unit Stakeholder Forum, including visits to the pier (closed), the White Rock Baths (closed) and the Pier Shop (open!), with dinner at the Azur (former Marina Pavilion). Next day a presentation at the House of Hastings by Eddie, Emily & Jessica of Meanwhile Space, before the ATU meeting explored the scale of potential transfers as assets are squeezed out of the public sector over the coming months and considered how to implement the Coalition’s commitment on Community Right to Buy…. Read more…