One hundred years on, the professor is still drawing crowds, but this time he is a statue erected as part of Sefton council's campaign to regenerate the Merseyside resort.
Southport is one of many seaside towns fighting the decline that has blighted Britain's coasts. Between them, seaside towns have spent more than £200m on regeneration, including social housing, in the past five years, fighting the decline of the tourism industry that once made them among the most fashionable places to live.
In the past 25 years, seaside tourism has fallen by more than 10 million trips to just 22 million a year; cheaper foreign holidays are often blamed, but in fact are only partly the problem, as the same number of people still go on holiday within the UK – they just tend to avoid the coast.
These trends have left the seaside economy in tatters. As unemployment rises among local people, vandalism and petty crime increase, further damaging the reputations of towns in the eyes of potential visitors.
Even resorts that appear to be bucking the trend, such as Brighton, Blackpool or Bournemouth, are in the top third of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's indices of deprivation.
Southport, at least, can hold up some brighter figures amid this gloom. It now welcomes 6 million people a year, up from 4 million 10 years ago. The change is the result of a five-year regeneration campaign that started in 1999 and has been praised by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. Southport's focus was to modernise the resort's image and broaden its appeal, and affordable housing has proved to be a key element of this strategy.
Seaside resorts often buck broad housing trends and cater to an unusual demographic. For instance, despite its proximity to the Merseyside market renewal pathfinder, Southport suffers not from low demand but from very high demand for its 1600 homes, particularly from elderly people and retirees from Liverpool and Manchester. Sefton council is in the process of switching from a waiting list to a choice-based lettings system, which it has piloted in lower-demand areas of the borough. But although the system will give tenants more choice, the housing department acknowledges that it will not compensate for the shortage of cheap rented accommodation.
The Central Southport Partnership, set up to spend £8.2m of single regeneration budget funding by March 2002, is also grappling with the problem. Providing affordable housing was a vital part of the partnership's remit, says development officer Don Gilkes. "In an indirect way, it does help to improve tourism in the area," he says. "Tourism-related employment is not the highest paid, and people with seasonal jobs are often dependent on rented housing. If you improve the availability of housing, it's certainly going to help regeneration."
The £7m restoration of Southport's 1860 pier has hogged the headlines – a new pavilion opened to the public last year and its Victorian shelters are to be restored to their former state. But the local housing sector has been equally busy.
The partnership invested £300,000 in a £2m "living above the shops" programme that has delivered 54 affordable units in the town, some in its Victorian town centre. The homes are managed by housing associations Quest, Riverside and County Palatine. Gilkes says: "If you're improving the appearance of property, it makes the area more attractive." CABE chairman Sir Stuart Lipton agrees. "There is a rising tide of excellence," he says. "Successful new building and restoration is raising the game enormously at the seaside, where design-led excellence has been unknown for years."
Meanwhile, Servite Housing Association has been given £500,000 of social housing grant to build 51 new homes – 23 houses, 10 flats and six bungalows for rent, and 12 houses for shared ownership. In addition, the local economy has been boosted by the construction of Ocean Plaza, a flash shopping complex behind a new £8.6m sea wall. Ocean Plaza was completed last year at a cost of £23m, mainly funded by the single regeneration budget, and has generated hundreds of local jobs.
But Southport could end up a victim of its own success. The regeneration provided a small number of affordable homes, but also increased demand in an already desirable area for retired people. Gilkes says the Central Southport Partnership is hoping to bid for more cash to tackle the problem, but that money is not enough. "It's difficult to find sites, because they're being lapped up by people building more expensive accommodation for the private market. It's easier said than done."
Hello again, campers
No one is keen to leave their holiday home, but residents of a converted Butlins holiday camp in Clacton, Essex, managed to hang on for nearly 30 years. The council had been trying to rebuild their flood-prone holiday shacks since the 1970s, but 100 families living in Jaywick Sands refused to budge until 1997, when the private landlords who owned the houses exhausted all legal loopholes and the council obtained compulsory purchase orders. In the 1930s, Jaywick Sands welcomed 6000 visitors every summer. It closed down after the war because of continual flooding, and huts designed as temporary, summer-season, homes became permanent. In 1997, the camp became part of the Brooklands estate, which had already transferred to the Guinness Trust. Clacton, which once received up to 20 million visitors every year, now sees only 5 million. Seasonal unemployment has turned to permanent unemployment and vandalism and antisocial behaviour on Jaywich Sands has become rife – hardly an asset to the seafront. Guinness has built 40 new homes, a mix of two- and three-bedroom houses and two-bedroom bungalows suitable for the elderly and people with disabilities. The new estate was built further back from the seafront with the houses around a square planted with fruit trees. A wetland nature habitat was created to deal with stormwater and a private developer is building three new blocks of flats, 18 units in total, with balconies facing the sea, on the original site. It is just beginning the second phase of the project, on the estate proper. Removing the crumbling housing on the seafront has already helped raise tourist numbers. “Unemployment may remain high and vandalism in older parts is still rife, but the regeneration has certainly helped to bring people back to Clacton,” says Sally Looker, Tendring District Council’s tourism manager.Llandudno lives again
Among the legends in which the Welsh seaside town of Llandudno plays a part, there is one significant milestone of which many are unaware. For it was here, in 1898, that Wales’ first council housing was built – 20 terraced houses on the aptly named Council Street. Ironically, council housing is now partly to blame for a drop in Llandudno’s tourist-based economy. Housing demand is high, with additional pressure from a large number of right-to-buy sales. Although the Victorian and Edwardian hotels that line the seafront are as picturesque as ever, deprivation in areas like the overcrowded Tre Cwm estate spoilt the town’s image. “Visitors can see the poorer areas and it can be detrimental not just for residents but for tourism,” says Paul Diggory, chief executive of North Wales Housing Association and formerly regeneration director at Conwy District Council. “The Tre Cwm estate suffered from a lot of antisocial behaviour, drug and alcohol problems, crime and houses that had fallen into disrepair.” The council formed the Tre Cwm Estate Partnership with the North Wales Housing Association, North Wales Police and the Welsh Assembly to demolish the worst affected flats and build traditional family homes in their place. The partnership spent £4m, mainly from the Welsh Assembly, building 182 homes, a pedestrianised zone and a new community centre, and worked with the police to improve safety. It seems to have done the trick. The estate’s waiting list has increased from 300 to 800 people. Councillor Ronnie Hughes says: “Tre Cwm was in such a bad state beforehand it really brought down the inner city. But since the flats were demolished and the new houses built, regular visitors are saying how much better-looking the town centre is. Now we have to solve the problem of the number of people who love it so much they want to stay here.”Source
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