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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1023-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: HOUSING, PLANNING, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE REGIONS COMMITTEE
Tuesday 27 June 2006 MR STEVE VINSON, MRS KAJA CURRY, MR PAUL BELLOTTI, MS SUE LANG and MR PETER COE
MR ADAM BATES, MR STEVE WEAVER, DR ROBIN McINNES, OBE, and COUNCILLOR IAN WARD
MR JAMIE MERRICK, MR PAUL LOVEJOY, MR IAN WRAY and MR IAN THOMPSON Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 87
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee on Tuesday 27 June 2006 Members present Dr Phyllis Starkey, in the Chair Sir Paul Beresford Mr Clive Betts Lyn Brown John Cummings Mr Greg Hands Anne Main Mr Bill Olner Dr John Pugh Alison Seabeck ________________ Memoranda submitted by Caradon District Council, East Riding of Yorkshire Council and District of Easington Council
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Steve Vinson, Head of Economic & Community Services, Mrs Kaja Curry, Tourism Development Manager, Caradon District Council, Mr Paul Bellotti, Forward Planning Manager, Ms Sue Lang, Principal Regeneration Manager, East Riding of Yorkshire Council, and Mr Peter Coe, Head of Regeneration, District of Easington Council, gave evidence. Q1 Chair: Perhaps I may start this afternoon's evidence session which is the first one we have held in the House of Commons. We had a session in Exmouth to start off our investigation into coastal towns. We are interested in identifying the challenges of coastal towns and the effectiveness of regional and national responses to those challenges. I hope that the witnesses will feel free to speak absolutely frankly. We are not here to pass judgment on your individual towns but to try to use your experience to inform our investigation. In a moment I shall ask you to say who you are and where you are from. Given that we are pressed for time, if one witness has made a point do not feel that you have to do it again just to demonstrate that it occurs elsewhere. Ms Lang: I am Sue Lang, Regeneration and Funding Manager of East Riding of Yorkshire Council. Mr Bellotti: I am Paul Bellotti, Forward Planning Manager, also of East Riding of Yorkshire Council. Mr Vinson: I am Steve Vinson, Head of Economic and Community Services of Caradon District Council. Mrs Curry: I am Kaja Curry, Tourism Development Manager for Caradon District Council, Cornwall. Mr Coe: I am Peter Coe, Head of Regeneration, Easington District Council. Q2 Chair: A number of you have highlighted the range of challenges that you feel coastal towns face, including deprivation, environmental constraints and unemployment. Those sorts of issues are faced by a large number of towns across the country. Can you say why you think coastal towns are worthy of special attention? Mr Vinson: Our basic view is that because these towns are set on a coastline they have 180 degrees - maybe more if they are on a headland - of sea and obviously no settlements or people to support the basis of an economy. If there are inland towns - we have some - on main thoroughfares they have a threshold population much greater than the town itself to draw upon in terms of the provision of public services or businesses. A coastal town has a void in population in terms of what one can call upon to provide services. Q3 Chair: Is that the major characteristic that makes them differ from other towns? Mr Coe: We were late in giving evidence. We are not a typical resort coastal town. Easington is an ex-coalfield and ex-industrial area. The linkages with major conurbations, however, in terms of transport and economic infrastructure would be common across most coastal areas, in that a lot of investment and development has happened in larger cities and areas of growth, and distance to travel to work and accessibility is now an increasing part of economic markets from which I believe all coastal areas suffer. Mr Bellotti: Coastal towns often feature environmental assets such as heritage coasts and certainly around Bridlington we have those, which mean there are limitations on where we can develop in future and choose suitable sites for regeneration. While it is an asset to attract visitors to Bridlington it can also be a constraint. Q4 Chair: I should like to ask one further question about the major constraints on economic development in each of your areas and what you are doing to tackle those constraints. Mr Vinson: Our particular area as a coastal town in an AONB landscape setting is very attractive and is popular with tourism. The basis of the local economy is tourism which is very seasonal. There is a low wage rate with a limited career structure. The difficulty lies in reinvestment to maintain a good stock of premises, particularly as one has a conservation area to take into account. We are looking both to diversify the tourism basis and extend the season and go upmarket in quality. We are also working with the RDA on an historic environmental heritage scheme which seeks to invest RDA, European, English Heritage, council and private sector funding to upgrade premises which are not maintained to a consistent standard because the economic base is so cyclical in nature given its link to tourism. Ms Lang: Bridlington had a lot of land designated for employment and went all out to attract some major inward investors, but one by one all of them have moved away from the area. They find that they cannot make it stack up economically because of the distance from main markets. We are trying to concentrate on growing local businesses and harnessing the benefit from things like digital technology which means that businesses are less dependent on being adjacent to markets. To do that means having to reconfigure the business premises base within the town and also to fit it into a tourist context. Mr Coe: Easington probably suffers blanket deprivation both in social and economic terms; indeed, it is the seventh worst district authority in the country based on the index of multiple deprivation. I will not go into all the barriers and issues that we face, but they are wide-ranging in nature. This is largely the legacy of the mining industry and economic blight that is apparent in the area. Significant efforts have been made in education and skills to bring forward demand-led enterprise zones and economic growth, and that has been largely as a result of the national coalfield programme. In our main coastal town there has been a 15-year concerted effort effectively to try to redesign its purpose and diversify its economy. Q5 John Cummings: How has your tourism industry changed over the past 10 years? I address myself to the two sets of witnesses because Easington is perhaps a different entity from what we have talked about here? Ms Lang: It has changed very much. There is a group of people who choose to spend their two weeks in Bridlington or other resorts and there are still services and accommodation to cater for them. We have seen a considerable increase in self-catering, particularly caravan parks, but there are a lot more day trips which create problems. For the same amount of spend one is generating hugely increased numbers of journeys to the town which one needs to be able to manage. Another issue is the positioning of places like Bridlington in terms of business tourism. We have a conference and event venue, but we have done a lot of research into how to position that venue so it is not just creating more supply without demand. Q6 John Cummings: Can you give a practical example of the impact that that has had upon your particular area? Ms Lang: One key issue is the need to work very closely with caravan park owners, for example. To compete they have had to provide more and more facilities on their sites - swimming pools, evening venues et cetera - which mean that people are not going into the town and perhaps spending as much money as we would like. But we have built up quite a good relationship with them and want to be able to promote the whole experience of being in that area. We have also done a lot of work with bed and breakfast establishments and small hoteliers to enable them to bring their products up to standard. With Objective 2 and Yorkshire Forward funding through RDA we have enabled them to create better en suite facilities, reorganise facilities, improve frontages and create a more upmarket feel to the areas of B&Bs. Q7 Anne Main: You said earlier that there are still people who choose to spend the two weeks of their holiday in your area. Has that profile of persons or families changed, or is it the same as you would have expected? I just want to see if your tourism base is changing. Ms Lang: Without being pejorative, those communities falling within C2, D and E tend to take those staying holidays. What we seek to do is make it appeal to a broader spectrum of people. Q8 Anne Main: Has there been any change in the age profile? Ms Lang: They tend to be older; it is an aging population. There are people who have been to the same bed and breakfast for 20 to 25 years running. Q9 Anne Main: Therefore, it is an aging tourist population? Ms Lang: Yes. Q10 Mr Betts: It depends on the age profile of your resident population and the extent to which you have a skewed demographic profile. There are probably fewer younger people than the average. What does that do in terms of the economic impact on the area and the pressure on services? Mrs Curry: In Caradon we have an aging population. We have a higher proportion of the elderly and also many fewer younger people in our coastal towns and other parts. That is obviously having an impact on health services in particular. They have a higher requirement for health services. It also has an impact on employment opportunities for younger people. There are many fewer opportunities for them; they have to travel further. It also has an impact on education. There is no post-16 education in Looe, for example; students have to travel further for that. All the time it is undermining the reason for young people to stay; it makes it more difficult or even impossible for them to stay. Therefore, it is less likely to attract incomers with families because the infrastructure is not there to support young people. Q11 Mr Hands: I should like to come back to Caradon. I must declare an interest, in that as a child I lived in Looe between 1973 and1976. I am somewhat out of date. To return to tourism for a moment, how great do you believe is the potential, bearing in mind what appears to be an overall reduction in general seaside tourism in the United Kingdom, for developing niche tourism? Basically, fishing towns like Looe are not attracting the same number of bed-and-breakfast-type people but may pitch for a more upmarket kind of tourist industry, for example shark fishing? Mrs Curry: We have certainly seen a change in Looe's tourism industry since the time you left. Mr Hands: It has gone significantly more upmarket. Q12 Dr Pugh: All the sharks are gone! Mrs Curry: It has certainly levelled out and we do not have quite such a high peak. We have a peak but we also have build-up shoulder periods. Therefore, unemployment does not have such a high peak out of season; it is levelling off. That has been a positive change. As to quality, there has certainly been a shift from bed and breakfast and lower quality serviced accommodation. Customers now demand higher quality. That has manifested itself by a loss of low quality hotels in particular. They have now changed to apartments which are sold off either as private dwellings or as serviced accommodation. Time share is also manifesting itself in some of the lower quality and cheaper caravan sites in the area. There is a shift from low quality caravans to either statics or chalet-type developments of which we see more and more today. Again, they are being sold off almost as second homes or on a timeshare basis. That in itself will have an impact, because we are not getting new visitors coming through; it is being taken out of that market. Q13 Mr Hands: What about niche tourism? Mrs Curry: The shift in the quality of accommodation is also reflected in the activities in which people want to engage. It may come as a surprise that Looe has very high quality food outlets and restaurants. There is a niche there that is being developed. In addition, not shark-fishing but certainly looking at wild life is becoming more important in the area, for example the recent reported sightings of basking sharks. There is a potential for niche tourism, but we also know from our surveys that bucket-and-spade holidays, if you like, are still the bread and butter for many of our coastal towns; it keeps them going, but there is certainly potential for adding on some of those activities. Another niche is diving as a result of the creation of the first artificial reef with the sinking a few years ago of HMS Sylla about 10 miles from Looe. That has seen an increase in diving tourism in the area, so there is huge potential for identifying what is unique to an area that can be offered to visitors and developed. Q14 Mr Betts: One of the issues that always emerges is that young people leave and do not come back. Do you have examples of anything that you have done to keep young people in the area, or even attract them, or things that you would like to do but cannot for a specific reason? One issue that has already been raised with me is that where older people have grown up in an area they are probably quite supportive of measures to attract young people either as residents or visitors, but once people move into an area to retire they do not really want lots of young people around or things that may attract them. There is some kind of conflict with or resistance to that. Is that an issue that also faces you? Ms Lang: That is certainly something that we have had to address. We have had to go all out, particularly in Bridlington, to have a town-wide strategy that attempts to balance those things so that no one group feels disadvantaged and we are taking account of the needs of all groups. To get there has been a long and expensive process. One of the key issues is that to get it right involves a lot of fine-grain work with the community. To achieve that is quite expensive and time-consuming. There is still a generation of people who do not want the town to change, but a lot of the people who retired to the east coast from the mining and steel industries are no longer feeding through in that way because those industries are no longer there. There is perhaps a slight shift in that younger people move to the coast for quality of life. Having said that, a lot of them think they have retired but find that their pensions are not stretching that far and they need to get back into employment, which is also quite a challenge. We are trying to achieve that balance, recognising that there will be those odd demographics in a coastal area. Q15 Mr Betts: Is there anything specific that you have done successfully in the area to retain young people, or something that you think might be successful if you were allowed to do it? Ms Lang: To be slightly cynical, our own regeneration team has kept some young people who have grown up in Bridlington. Q16 Chair: Mr Coe, do you want to comment on the demographic issues from your point of view? Mr Coe: Over the past 20 to 25 years our area has suffered significant emigration and has lost probably one quarter of its population over that time because of mine closures. Certainly, as to increasing educational attainment and generating employment, one of the prime issues for us is the creation of places as well as working with the social aspects of local community regeneration. We have had significant investment in different sectors over that period, including the tourism industry. We have the Willsbrook Spa Hotel in the area, which is a £20 million investment. We are encouraging organisations and investors like that to go into modern apprenticeships to make sure that schools have vocational relationships with those people so they can support and explore different sector opportunities. That has been progressing well. But when one asks young people at local level why they do not want to stay in the area they say that it is lack of amenity and facilities and those kinds of issues. If they cannot be mobile and get around either by public transport or car ownership they will move away to areas that are more convenient to them. It is improving but there are still real issues about migration. Alison Seabeck: We all come from areas with very different economic histories. From your evidence it appears that you face similar problems now. Evidence that we have received from elsewhere suggests that there are coastal towns and villages - Whitstable, Stow-on-the-Wold, Padstow and so on - which buck the trend and are thriving. Do you have other examples in your areas where individual towns or villages are regenerating well and, if so, what do you believe to be the reasons? Q17 Sir Paul Beresford: Perhaps I may add to that. There is a knee-jerk reaction to looking to the public sector to pay. Following on what Alison Seabeck said, all three of you have given examples of where you have got on with it yourselves with help from partners. Can you give us a few more examples? Can you also tell us where there are obstructions - red tape obstructions and central and local government obstructions - that might be removed to allow you to move faster and better? Mr Vinson: To give one example, there are measures to retain young people within the locality. That is a joint project that we are still pursuing with Torpoint College. How do you retain young people within an area? How do you support a small business sector where quite often bigger businesses will have in-house training or increase the wage rates and take skilled people away from the small business sector? That causes a problem for expansion of the small business sector. For the three years during which the project has been in place with Torpoint College it has used three of our business units. During school time they offer vocational training which is directed at providing practical skills through the children's curriculum, but out of school time they also offer training courses, which are supported by the European Social Fund, to those over the school age who need to be equipped with skills that are directly relevant to the need of employers. But quite often the educational institutions offer a one, two or three-year course which starts in September and immediately provides the types of things that the small business community need. That is a project which we have established at Torpoint. At the moment we have two planning applications going through the system to establish a similar project in Saltash and another one in Liskeard. Mr Bellotti: We do not have any projects that are bucking the trend wholesale in the East Riding, but because of that we are putting in place master planning in three of our coastal towns to try to address the issues, problems and programme and co-ordinate efforts through multi-agencies to direct and target those investments and efforts in order to buck the trend in future years. One example of that is in Hornsea where we can point to a market town initiative which has brought forward some very valuable projects in recent years, including a brand new promenade, but it will take some time for us to detect whether or not that has helped us buck the trend. On a much larger scale, we are preparing an area action plan for Bridlington which draws together retail employment and housing allocations into a master plan for the town to help bring about a renaissance which creates more jobs and, hopefully, keeps young people in Bridlington so we do not suffer a leakage to major cities. You asked about obstructions. It is not so much obstruction, but understandably coastal towns are at the fringes of city regions. Because of that we need to find ways to draw the benefits that we will achieve through city region developments to coastal areas and tap into that growth, particularly from Northern Way. We think we can do that through a master planning process which is much more long term and is less project-led but more programme-led development. Mr Coe: We are looking at a town with a 15 or 20-year focus on this matter. It has received significant investment from structural funds, both domestic and European. One of the issues for us is the rate of progress. Dealing with a cocktail of funding issues in an area like ours, which is a pilot for everything under the sun, is extremely difficult. Great flexibility at the local level for implementation would be welcome. Similarly, there are more emergent issues around Northern Way. City regions, city-centric, regional and economic policies give rise to concern in areas like ours that might be considered to be on the periphery, albeit it is between two of the main city regions, in that European investment from which we have benefited and made good progress with in the past could well be deflected into those core city areas which would be administered and delivered through the RDAs. Q18 Dr Pugh: Moving directly to the RDAs, they spend hundreds of millions of pounds every year in one region or another. Do you think you get your fair share of that when you look at the profile of the expenditure of the RDAs? Do you think they recognise your needs? That is a question addressed to all the witnesses. Mr Coe: As a region I would question it. Locally, a town like Seaham in particular has done reasonably well. We have matched that investment from whichever public source fifty-fifty with private investment. That has been quite an achievement given the development interest in the area over recent years. The issues around the RDA are two in number. One is at policy level. To sustain that continued development we are on the cusp of hopefully making tourism a part of a sustainable economy for our area. That is only just emerging and is part of a wider and more sustainable economy. The other is at programme level in terms of implementation and the way that RDAs have developed, getting them to see a wider approach rather than a red line approach to site development. Mrs Curry: We need to recognise that to deliver any benefits in a coastal town will always cost more than its counterpart in an inland town. Q19 Dr Pugh: Why? Mrs Curry: A number of issues arise, starting off with the fact that one has only a 180 degree hinterland and market. Having the coast and all that that entails in terms of coastal defence work, and also often having a historic and very compact town into which one has to squeeze things, means it costs more. The fact that there is no other available land in the area pushes up house and land prices. There is access often along very narrow corridors, particularly when it is along a river. Again, that limits access to markets, jobs and also tourism. All the time it is costing more and more to deliver any given output in a coastal down compared with others. Q20 Dr Pugh: But should this not make them more reluctant to spend because they get less bang for the buck on that basis? Mrs Curry: That seems to be the case. Because any output will cost more in their ratios our coastal towns often seem to have lost out to other areas The reason is that our ratios do not come up to the formulas which apply to other towns. Ms Lang: We would echo that experience. We have been very fortunate in that most of the coastal towns in Yorkshire have the designation as either an urban or rural renaissance town, but that does not perhaps recognise the interrelationship and coastal nature of those towns. As you can imagine, in the rural market towns programme Yorkshire has a huge number of such towns all putting up their hands for resources, and what the actual objectives are and how the prioritisation is working has become a bit nebulous. We have been fortunate that the RDA has explicitly sought to match European funding in terms of Objective 2 where that is available. The concern is that as that funding goes away and we have the more thematic approach to European funding it will be more important for the coastal towns to identify their contribution, if you like, to the regional picture. Q21 Dr Pugh: Obviously, the RDA understands deprivation, big cities and so on. Do you believe - presumably, this will be reflected in its policies and strategies - that it understands the position of coastal towns as well as it might, or that its priorities and conceptions lie elsewhere? Ms Lang: In our case, because of the quite distinct urban and rural split within the RDA neither team fully understands the needs of a coastal town. Mr Bellotti referred to master planning. If one has a master plan that is clear, crisp and understandable it is far easier. One then has a prospectus in which the RDA and others can invest, but the cost of compiling that and marshalling the funding is itself quite a significant job. I think we have to go down that route in order to gain that understanding. Q22 Dr Pugh: How hard have you had to lobby to get included in the relatively new regional economic strategies? Ms Lang: We have done so. Our RDA is based very much on sub-regions which cut across the coastal strip. That is a challenge, and it is still being played out because the city regions really came along as the new RDA was in preparation. Therefore, it has tended to become perhaps city-region focused which in some respects is good for us as a local authority because of our proximity to Hull, but there is a danger that we will then lose impetus as far as concern the coastal towns. Q23 Dr Pugh: Can you liaise with the officer responsible specifically for tourism within the RDA? Ms Lang: Yes. Q24 Dr Pugh: Is that true of all our witnesses? Mrs Curry: Yes, but tourism is not the only issue that we need to consider. Q25 Dr Pugh: But that would help, would it not? Mrs Curry: Yes. Chair: I am conscious that we have skated over the issues, but thank you very much. We must move to the next set of witnesses. If when you get back on the train you suddenly think of a really good example of an initiative that you should have told us about please feel free to drop us a note. Memoranda submitted by Brighton & Hove City Council, Blackpool Borough Council and Isle of Wight Council
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Adam Bates, Head of Tourism, Brighton & Hove City Council, Mr Steve Weaver, Chief Executive, Blackpool Borough Council, Dr Robin McInnes, OBE, Coastal Manager, and Councillor Ian Ward, Cabinet Member for Planning, Environment and Transport, Isle of Wight Council, gave evidence. Q26 Chair: Since you were sitting here when I spoke to the previous witnesses you will know the form. Perhaps you would first explain who you are and then we shall move to the questions. Mr Bates: I am Adam Bates, Head of Tourism for Brighton & Hove. Mr Weaver: I am Steve Weaver, Chief Executive of Blackpool Borough Council. Councillor Ward: I am Ian Ward, Cabinet Member for Planning, Environment and Transport, Isle of Wight Council. Dr McInnes: I am Robin McInnes, Coastal Manager for Isle of Wight Council. I chair the Coastal Defence Groups of England and Wales. Q27 Chair: As I said before, there is no need to repeat something that somebody else has said. Given that there are two witnesses from the Isle of Wight, I would appreciate it if only one of you responded to a particular topic. Let me ask you about the social and economic impact that the age profile in your particular coastal towns has on your areas. Councillor Ward: As to the age profile on the island, about 26 per cent are pensioners and retirees. That percentage is growing by five per cent a year. The problem for us is that we do not have a workforce. Q28 Sir Paul Beresford: Is that five per cent of the 26 per cent or the total? Councillor Ward: Five per cent of the total population. Q29 Sir Paul Beresford: So, next year it will be 31 per cent? Councillor Ward: Yes. For people it is an attractive place in which to retire. The problem that that presents to us is one of medical services. We have little more than a cottage hospital. Most of our medical treatment is provided across the Solent on the mainland. The cost of that journey is not subsidised in any way. Our ferries are not subsidised in any way, and we have a real problem of access. A 10-minute two-way journey on a ferry costs a single person £16. Q30 Sir Paul Beresford: If one turns it on its head, the five per cent will go down if this continues, will it not? Councillor Ward: I do not follow. Q31 Sir Paul Beresford: If this continues as you say the five per cent will reduce to four, three and two per cent because they will be attracted away. Councillor Ward: I am talking about older people. Chair: They are coming in, not just growing old there. Q32 Anne Main: They are going there to live, not to visit? Councillor Ward: Yes. That is the age profile of the population. Q33 Chair: In relation to the Isle of Wight, is its major problem the fact that it is an island or that it has lots of coastal towns? Councillor Ward: In part it is both. Having listened to the previous witnesses, they have all the problems that we have but ours are compounded by the fact that we are an island. Yes, our coastal towns suffer just the same but the problem is compounded because we are an island with serious access problems. Q34 Chair: Perhaps I may remind you of the question which is to do with the social and economic impact of the age profile and what pressure that places on agencies. As a supplementary, what are you doing to address the outward migration of young people, if that is an issue for you? Mr Weaver: One point I make in relation to this point, which applies to a lot of the problems we face, is that the coastal towns and resorts and the issues they face are very different. There is not one common theme for all coastal towns and resorts because they are very different. In Blackpool's case the issue of a growing elderly population, which will increase from 16 per cent of those of retirement age now to 21 per cent by 2020, as we estimate it to be, is not caused by people moving to Blackpool to retire but because we are losing our young people and retaining our elderly population. That places significant pressures on social care and health. We are losing young people with the entrepreneur spirit and ability to grow the area. What are we doing about it? Clearly, we have to care for the elderly population and have to skew our budgets to deal with that. In order to try to retain and have a plan for the younger population we have to change the whole nature of Blackpool's economy, which at the moment is seasonal and incredibly low wage - I believe that it has the fourth lowest gross annual earnings of anywhere in the UK - to create career opportunities and all-year-round employment so that young people believe it worthwhile staying in Blackpool. That is about reshaping and transforming the resort to an all-year-round economy based on a very different tourism industry - we do not have an alternative - from the one it now has. If we cannot reshape that and deal with the economic profile and prosperity of Blackpool we will not be able to deal with the issues arising from the changing demographics. It is not that we are opposed to elderly people staying in Blackpool, but the changing nature of the population is causing a real problem, in that we are losing our young people and there is pressure on public service budgets. In particular, the elderly population that remains in Blackpool is one which has particular issues of deprivation and disadvantage and, therefore, the costs on the public purse are significantly more than would be case with a healthy and wealthy elderly population moving in. Mr Bates: Clearly, we are quite different from many of the other towns and cities that have spoken. We are a city of about a quarter of a million people, of whom over 165,000 are of working age. One third of our population is between 25 and 44, arguably the most economically active. We have two universities which bring a large influx of students, many of whom we cannot get rid of. They love to stay and they do, and in many respects that has helped us. There has been an immigration of commuters who have replaced London living for living by the coast. That gives rise to a whole range of other issues for us. Some of the problems that we share with other coastal areas are less to do with the demographics of the city than some of the more physical attributes of where we are which we have heard about previously. Within that, the history of many of the social issues that we share and are common across coastal towns and cities shows very clear pockets of dependency, if you like, within our area. We have high levels of looked-after children, very significant mental health issues, homelessness, very high levels of housing benefit dependence and so on, so we are not immune to the problems faced by other coastal towns. Q35 Anne Main: If I may begin with Blackpool, I should like to address tourism and how it has changed over the past 10 years. Perhaps you would comment on things like conferences, because I know that that has given rise to some issues. Mr Weaver: In relation to government policy and, until very recently, regional development agency policy, I believe that tourism has been a Cinderella industry. As a country we have been able and happy to support manufacturing industry but not places which give people huge fun and entertainment in terms of the industry. For example, it has not supported the pleasure beach which gives millions of people huge fun and entertainment and needs considerable investment, whereas it is happy to support manufacturing that may produce the kind of bric-a-brac and "kiss me quick" hats that you find on Blackpool front. I cannot see a rational, intellectual reason for supporting one and not the other. Tourism and industry is changing because people's expectations and experience are growing. If we take the North West as an example, we have spent £200 million of public money through the Regional Development Agency, lottery money and other support to give people reasons not to come to Blackpool over the past 15 years. We have spent that on attractions elsewhere throughout the North West. We have spent public money, whether it is in Manchester, Liverpool or elsewhere in the North West, on leisure and tourist attractions, whether it be the football museum in Preston or the attractions in Liverpool and Manchester, but failed to support the basic bedrock of the tourist industry in Blackpool to meet the raised level of quality, expectation and experience. Q36 Alison Seabeck: Was that simply because other councils made a better job of it in terms of bidding for funding? Mr Weaver: No; it is because the nature of investment has been skewed towards, if you like, culture and other kinds of investments, not the kind of fun and entertainment that is typical of a seaside tourist industry. Q37 Chair: Are you suggesting there is a value judgment being made about what is and what is not worthy entertainment? Mr Weaver: No. I do not suggest that it is an issue of class. Chair: I merely seek clarification. Anne Main: I would like to go back to tourism and address a question to all the witnesses. I am aware that Blackpool is sometimes described as the entertainment capital of Europe, and it is also engaged in conferencing. Some parties go there and some do not. It is all changing. I should like to hear the reasons why you think that tourism is changing. Why are people going elsewhere? Q38 Chair: Perhaps we can be relatively disciplined and to the point. Mr Bates: It has changed and continues to do so. The pattern of travel is such that people are taking increasing numbers of short breaks and their duration is shrinking. The numbers of trips increases as does the level of competition. Ten or 15 years ago the range of options was much more limited. Any number of destinations in Europe now take the same amount of time to get to and probably cost you less. It is much more competitive. We are not alone here; it would be the same for Blackpool and elsewhere. We have attempted to diversify. I believe that in the case of Brighton & Hove it has been a matter of putting together broadly two markets that balance each other out and provide a sustainable sector. We have a leisure market that follows a perfect distribution over the course of the year, as you would expect. We have a conference and business market which, looked at over the course of the year, is completely inverted in relation to leisure. If you put those two things together you have a much stronger base for allowing your industry to make the required investment in its infrastructure: the provision of rooms, painting the outside of the property and training and developing people. However, to be in a competitive position and deliver a competitive conference and meetings facility requires substantial investment. At the moment we have reached a point where we have to look at how to refresh that offer, because for us we developed it 30 years ago. It is now much more competitive and we need to renew our main conference facility. Q39 Anne Main: Perhaps the Isle of Wight would also comment on that briefly? Do you have the same sorts of pressures? Councillor Ward: Our tourist industry was in its heyday in the fifties and sixties where traditionally families came and spent their two weeks by the seaside. Effectively, the market has disappeared. Now the average stay on the island is something like four days. As I tried to explain earlier, the fact that we are an island really prevents the day-tripper coming to us because it is too expensive. If you consider that it will cost a husband and wife who want a short break something like £100 to come across with their car, they will just drive on and go elsewhere. Even that market has shrunk as well. Our tourist market has slumped, for want of a better description. Q40 Anne Main: How do you diversify? The Isle of Man has exactly the same problems and they have various events to attract people to that island? Councillor Ward: We are doing exactly that. As you probably know, we host the Isle of Wight music festival; we also host White Air which is an extreme sports event; and we have motocross. We are trying to encourage and sponsor all these things and also make use of our natural environment with cycling, hiking and so on. That is the market that we seek to attract. The Isle of Wight is really one coastal town. Most of our population lives around the coast. We are trying to make best use of all our assets and promote the idea that people should come to the island because it is a beautiful place. Q41 Anne Main: Mr Weaver, what are you doing to attract tourists? Mr Weaver: We have developed the new Blackpool master plan. We cannot diversify away from tourism. For us it must be mass tourism but of a different quality. Our aim is to have an all-year-round resort. We have looked for this unique catalyst which will help change the perception of Blackpool and attract people to it all year round. Hence, we have pursued pretty well blinkered a resort casino/leisure application, because for us that is the kind of catalyst or grain of sand in the oyster which creates the pearl. Without it we cannot see the future of Blackpool. Only that will give the major impetus to all sorts of investment in Blackpool from other private sector tourism players. Q42 Dr Pugh: I like the association of Blackpool with oysters and things like that. I was looking at a report by Sheffield Hallam University on the seaside economy. It concludes by saying: "While there has clearly been restructuring in the wake of the rise of the foreign holiday, the continuing resilience in employment in and around parts of the local economy most dependent on tourism suggests there has often been successful adaptation. The seaside tourist industry remains one to be nurtured, not written off as a lost cause." Working on the idea of nurturing, do you think that the RDAs in your areas have shown the capacity and ability to do that successfully? Councillor Ward: We have had some investment via the RDA but in the main it has gone into housing and infrastructure; they are our greatest needs. Q43 Chair: What sort of infrastructure? Councillor Ward: We have invested our money in housing and port facilities. The tourism industry has had next to nothing; we just do not get the level of funding to be able to spread it around. Unfortunately, we are in quite a rich region, so we have no Objective 1 or Objective 2 EU status. We are seen to be a wealthy part of the country and so we get nothing. In reality our levels of deprivation are probably worse than those of the South West, but we get no recognition of that. Q44 Lyn Brown: Have you ever mapped your areas of deprivation? Councillor Ward: Yes. Q45 Lyn Brown: Have you managed to make a comparator with other areas? Councillor Ward: Yes. Not only has it been mapped but it has been taken to the European Commission who agrees that we should have Objective 1 or 2 status, but the Government has denied it because we are in the south east region. Q46 Dr Pugh: That does not stop them taking a positive interest in your affairs, does it? Councillor Ward: No, and we try hard, but the cards are stacked against us. Q47 Anne Main: You are lumped in with other areas and so it counts against you? Councillor Ward: Yes. Mr Bates: I would say that the relationship with and the resultant action that has taken place between ourselves and the RDA has been extremely positive. The strategies up and down and in the middle all talk to each other and link thoroughly through the regional economic strategy, the local strategy, the area investment framework, local area agreements and so on. They are clear about the existing priorities. We even have a Sussex coastal towns strategy to encompass areas all the way from Hastings through to Shoreham harbour. A lot of work has been done. We have some very good evidence of where the interventions have had a positive effect. A very good example would be the seafront development initiative that took place a number of years ago literally between the piers. That is our shop window. Approximately £2 million of principally European funding, a lot of which was administered through SEEDA, resulted in over £20 million of total investment, mostly private, which arguably initiated a very large regeneration within much of the centre of the city. Notwithstanding that, some very large capital projects still need to happen for the city to remain successful. For us to remain competitive we need a £100 million conference centre. The upside to delivering that is probably another 2,000 jobs in tourism in the city; the downside to maintaining the status quo may be a loss of 2,000 jobs. Q48 Chair: You are in the same RDA as the Isle of Wight? Mr Bates: Yes. Mr Weaver: Government policy over many years has focused on the industrial towns and cities which were in need of significant support and regeneration. I believe that that has been a great success. We now have some great cities and industrial towns in the country. I believe that government policy shaped that. Because of that, in the past the regional development agencies - I can speak for the North West - have not focused sufficiently on the issues that face coastal towns and resorts. Only very recently in terms of the North West Development Agency, Blackpool's potential and the need to support it has been recognised in the policies and that is starting to flow through in terms of financial support. That has not been there in the past but it is now being recognised. Whether that applies to all the coastal towns and resorts in the North West is a different issue. I can speak only for Blackpool in relation to that, but I believe that that is founded on the fact that in the past different governments have not looked at the issues of coastal towns and resorts as seriously as they have considered industrial towns and cities. To return to a point made by my colleague from the Isle of Wight, there are very dense populations on the periphery of our regions and on the coast which can suffer significant degrees of deprivation and which on their own would bring them within Objective 1 support, but because they are isolated it means they are not part of a larger conurbation and therefore are unable to access the levels of funding that would otherwise be available. Q49 Alison Seabeck: You have covered in some depth the problems of central government funding, but how should the funding formula to calculate central government funding be changed in order to take account of the anomalies which show up presently in coastal areas? Explain your concerns, if you like, about the way in which day visitors are calculated. Do you have concerns about the way in which the education statistics are gathered in September? Does that skew education budgets? Mr Bates: The very obvious one for us is that by any measure of success of a city in delivering visitors we would be ninth or tenth. We accurately measure day visits to the city. In 2005, which is the last year for which we have data, there were 6.7 million visits. The existing formula which distributes approximately £200 million worth of grants to authorities currently puts us at 127 out of 354. If you look at that it just does not make sense by any possible measure of the relative numbers of day visitors that come through the city. We have some very high levels of housing benefit recipients which are peculiar to coastal areas and, like Blackpool and others, the comparative spending on children's social services is extremely high for a number of reasons. I think it would be helpful if all of those matters were more accurately reflected in central government grant funding. Q50 Alison Seabeck: Spending on children's social services is anomalous; it is different in coastal areas? Mr Bates: It is. Q51 Chair: Why? Mr Bates: The short answer is that we do not know. There is not enough evidence clearly to indicate the reasons for it. There are suggestions that it is related to some of the social issues that we face in coastal area and parents face regarding homelessness, alcohol abuse, substance misuse and so on which we see occurring very frequently and are very costly to adult social care in areas where there are pockets of deprivation. In consequence, that impacts on children's social care costs. Mr Weaver: As to revenue support, our estimate is that there is a transparent gap of £5 million in terms of the cost of our being a tourist visitor economy and what we receive in terms of central government grant, but beneath that there are other issues in terms of children and educational issues. Why do we think we face additional costs because of that? One is the transient nature of our population which imposes significant costs on us. I refer to movements in and out of and around Blackpool, such that some of our primary schools have a turnover in a 12-month period of 55 to 60 per cent. The performance of those pupils falls well below that of the stable population. In addition, the families that come in which suffer significant deprivation and disadvantage are drawn by the easy availability of cheap rented and flatted accommodation. That imposes significant pressures on our children's services. One statistic given to me before I came here was that since April we have found that of the 120 single people who have arrived in Blackpool and presented themselves only five per cent have come with a job. That is also symptomatic of families who come to Blackpool; they present high-cost issues for us to deal with. Q52 Anne Main: Are you saying that because of the inexpensive nature of the accommodation that you have people who either have no wages or who are on low wages would be attracted disproportionately to coming to your areas, so the poverty cycle is in some way fuelling itself? Councillor Ward: Yes. Mr Weaver: It is effectively a transfer from the cities to the coast. Exactly why people do that we do not know. In Blackpool there is a large amount of relatively cheap and easily available rented and flatted accommodation. Bed and breakfast accommodation and guest houses fall out of that use and look for another; they become either houses in multiple occupation or apartments. I am sure that there are other reasons that we do not yet properly understand. Q53 Anne Main: Perhaps the reasons are quality of life? Mr Weaver: It could be that, but it certainly happens. Q54 Chair: Is it the same in the Isle of Wight? Councillor Ward: We suffer the same problem. Formerly, the rate used to take into account temporary residents, if one can call them that, but the new formula it does not. Q55 John Cummings: Is the problem because people are paid cash in hand? That applies to both the Isle of Wight and Blackpool. Councillor Ward: This is symptomatic of the poor levels of pay in the tourism industry. We are on minimum wage at best. I dread to think what happens unofficially. Q56 John Cummings: Does Blackpool have the same opinion? Mr Weaver: In part, it is due to the cash-in-hand economy. We also have landlords in Blackpool who place advertisements in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle and Glasgow inviting tenants to take up their accommodation. Q57 Lyn Brown: I am fascinated by what I have heard about poverty and the magnet of deprivation of some of the coastal towns. I asked the Isle of Wight whether or not they did any mapping. Can I confirm that the type of mapping you are talking about is the tracing of economic indicators down to certain output areas in order to express and explain the nature of deprivation, where it is and who is impacted by it? Councillor Ward: We do have that information and we will gladly send it to you. Lyn Brown: I do not know whether the other witness have such information. Chair, is it in order for us to ask for that in writing? Chair: If possible, perhaps each of you can send that to us afterwards. Q58 Mr Betts: We have heard how perhaps you might like to tweak the formula to get what you believe is a fairer share of central government mainstream funding, but one of the issues raised is the complexity of lots of different bits of funding streams around the place which you try constantly to access and pull together. Is that a fair criticism? Would you rather see those pulled together or reorganised in some way so you have one direct funding stream to help coastal towns? Is that feasible in your view? Mr Weaver: Absolutely. Government has moved towards single pot funding for capital allocations and perhaps it could go further in terms of housing and allow much more local flexibility. Clearly, we would ask for a larger cake, but even with its present size if we were genuinely allowed local flexibility in its distribution simplified by bringing everything together that would be much better. I can be cheeky and say that, in addition to funding which you would expect us to ask for, changes in government recognition of tourism as an industry are as important as recognition in planning policies of the different issues that coastal towns and resorts face. I refer to PPG20 and 21 in terms of tourism and housing policies. If government policies in relation to that reflected the different natures, needs and demands in coastal towns and resorts it would help considerably. It is not just an issue of funding; it is about policy. Q59 Chair: Do the other witnesses agree with that? Councillor Ward: Yes. Mr Bates: I would broadly echo that. Q60 Chair: I was struck by just how different Brighton and Hove were, not least in their demography. Do you believe that the strategy pursued by Brighton and Hove, with its two universities and a wealthy population of London commuters who can sustain upmarket cultural activities, is a one-off or can anybody else do it? Mr Bates: There are probably elements of it which would be indicative of where success might exist in other coastal areas. For us there are a couple of threads. We cannot do much about our location, and to some extent we benefit from it. Equally, it poses problems for us in creating an ever-greater disparity between the haves and have-nots within our city because of rising housing costs. However, I believe that a very important decision was made almost 30 years ago to develop our conference centre. One has to reflect upon the fact that in 1977 when it opened there was not one in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff or London. That was the point at which we said very clearly that that was how we would set out our tourism development for the next 30, 40 and 50 years and beyond. But I believe there are other elements, a number of which rest upon things like the development of cultural facilities. That thread has developed very much over the past 10 to 15 years. We have Brighton festival events. We have heard about how those work elsewhere. We would very much support the idea that Blackpool could benefit from its location for the establishment of something like a super-casino. We can see clearly how that would benefit a resort such as that. We see no competition in that. Mr Hands: In one of your answers you talk about the importance of attracting private capital, which Brighton has been much more successful in doing, and also attracting new businesses like the whole language school industry and the gay economy in Brighton which has been very important to the prosperity of the city. I think that a lot could be learned from other coastal towns like Brighton. I do not think that it is merely a question of London commuters moving to Brighton; I think that it is a more innovative, flexible approach in which one does not look merely to central government to come along and help out. Chair: The issue is whether everybody else could do it as well? Mr Hands: I think that your premise is incorrect. I think it is wrong to say that Brighton is built purely on a London commuter or London flight economy. Q61 Chair: Do the other witnesses want to add anything? Councillor Ward: These initiatives are more difficult for us on the island for us to take advantage of, but, as Mr Hands said, we are looking to private finance as well. We do not want to rely on the Government. We are not here for a handout; we are trying to help ourselves. We are in touch with private financiers and developers and move on as best we can. Mr Weaver: Higher education is absolutely key. That cannot happen in Blackpool for probably eight or 10 years, but it is part of our long-term strategy. I think that is an important development. Q62 Dr Pugh: But that is something that only big resorts can do; it is not a solution to smaller resort deprivation? Mr Weaver: That is absolutely right. As to the private sector, that is absolutely key to investment. In Blackpool we have to create the infrastructure for that. Like Brighton, we believe that our strategy to have a new convention/conference facility is absolutely critical to our future. That is probably where we are competitors. It will cost the sum of money to which Brighton referred. That will not come from the public purse and we have to look for a way to ensure it is delivered. Chair: Thank you very much for your evidence. We look forward with great interest to the written additions for which we asked. Memoranda submitted by East of England Development Agency (EEDA), South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), North West Regional Development Agency (NWRDA) and South West of England Regional Development Agency (SWRDA)
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Jamie Merrick, Director of Sustainable Communities (EEDA), Mr Paul Lovejoy, Executive Director, Strategy & Sustainability (SEEDA), Mr Ian Wray, Head of Planning, Transport and Housing (NWRDA), and Mr Ian Thompson, Director of Operations (North) (SWRDA), gave evidence. Q63 Chair: I imagine that all of the witnesses have been listening to the evidence. Perhaps you would begin by telling us who you are. Mr Wray: I am Ian Wray, Head of Planning, Transport and Housing at North West Regional Development Agency. Mr Thompson: I am Ian Thompson, Director of Operations (North) for the South West of England RDA. Mr Merrick: I am Jamie Merrick, currently acting Director of Sustainable Communities at the East of England Development Agency. Mr Lovejoy: I am Paul Lovejoy, Executive Director of Strategy and Sustainability with the South East England Development Agency. Q64 Anne Main: I would like to start by looking at problem areas. You have been listening to what has been said. Professor Steve Fothergill has said that "seaside resorts are the least understood of Britain's problem areas. They have never received the same attention as inner cities and rural areas." While that may be quite a sweeping statement, do you agree with it? Mr Lovejoy: I do not believe that is entirely true. In the case of my own agency, I can point to a recognition that the coastal fringe of the South East is a distinct area with distinct problems. We have pointed out for several years that if a regional boundary was drawn around the coast of the South East and it was called a region it would be an economy approximately the same size as the north east of England and would be performing at the same level. We recognise that there are issues in terms of untapped economic potential and we believe we can demonstrate that over several years our strategies have recognised the priority that need to be attached to those areas. Mr Merrick: From an east of England perspective, I think that we have a very different spatial pattern from many other parts of the country, in that we do not have a core city or major large-scale urban conurbation. Our small and medium-size towns and cities, both coastal and inland, have been the major focus of our attention. Because of that very different characteristic of the region there has been a major focus on a number of the larger and smaller coastal settlements such as Yarmouth and Lowestoft which have been major drivers of our sub-regional economies. Mr Wray: From the point of view of academic research and government research, it is probable that Professor Fothergill is correct, and he is in a good position to know. He is an outstanding academic and has carried out seminal research in this area. In the past a good deal of research has focused on the problems of core cities and big cities. Certainly, from our point of view it was when the development agency was established that we began to realise the serious problems in coastal resorts. Mr Thompson: Because of our distinct geography in the South West - I calculate that in our region we have about 700 miles of coastline - and the wide variety of settlements on the coast, it is difficult to see massive differences between inner city and rural areas. There are a lot of shared characteristics, but as an agency in the South West we have learnt a lot about their particular problems since 1999 when we were established. Q65 Anne Main: Do you regard coastal towns in your region as problem areas, or do you think they are just other versions of rural and urban problem areas? Do you regard them as special problem areas and, if so, in what way? Mr Thompson: Because of the large number of our coastal settlements we distinguish some that have special economic needs; they are more disadvantaged or deprived towns. I believe that that is reflected in the strategies and interventions that we have used in our regions. I think the answer is, yes, we recognise some as having those special needs. Q66 Chair: You will have heard Caradon make the point that RDAs may not invest in coastal towns because the costs are higher and presumably the cost benefit analysis is poorer, or whichever way round it is. Do you believe that to be the case? Mr Thompson: As a general point, no. I believe that in the context of the costs of RDA programmes and interventions and the returns that it looks for the agency sees equally difficult cost benefit analyses in some inner city areas. It is difficult to say that coastal towns have either a special or higher cost from that point of view. Q67 Anne Main: To go back to my "problem areas", can I ask the other witnesses to respond? Mr Wray: The important point about coastal towns is that they vary enormously. In the North West, which has some of the most serious problems in the country, as the research made clear, some coastal towns are doing quite nicely. They are not exactly bucking the trend, but places like West Kirby, with its strong commuter element, Grange-over-Sands with its a large retired but relatively affluent population and also Southport with its commuter base, although it also has problems, are not doing too badly. But places like Blackpool, Morecambe and New Brighton in Merseyside have very acute problems of deprivation and a very limited economic base on which to diversify. Mr Lovejoy: As I think you heard from the previous set of witnesses, within one region, the South East, we see two contrasting examples. In both cases my organisation has been able to agree a set of appropriate priorities for investment and action, but the futures that those two areas face are very different. In one you see the opportunities presented by a bold investment to attract new business and individual tourism over the past 30 years in the context of a city which has always been seen as having a close relationship, both cultural and geographic, with the capital. In the Isle of Wight we come as near as we can to the problems of isolation and peripherality in the South East. I argue that they will always require very different solutions. Q68 Anne Main: Is there a lack of flexibility in teasing out those different problems? No one size fits all. Do you say that you need to look at them in a very flexible way? Mr Lovejoy: Yes, I am saying that. I say that whether it is at regional or national level there is a need to respect the different possibilities and dynamics in those areas which will vary quite significantly. Q69 Alison Seabeck: Basically, are you saying that there should not be a national coastal town strategy because the nature of coastal towns is such that they are far too diverse to have a national strategy? Mr Lovejoy: Certainly, the conclusion we draw is that it is questionable whether a national framework would deliver the results that we look for, if by that we mean a "one size fits all" approach. If we are looking to secure recognition of the needs of coastal towns and communities as a set and then recognise the different interventions and possibilities, that might provide a useful framing of need, but I am not aware that any regional development agency has argued for the value of a single national strategy. Q70 Chair: I do not think you need to make comments. Do you think there should be a national coastal town strategy, or not? Mr Merrick: Our position would be exactly the same as Mr Lovejoy's. Q71 Chair: Is that the general view? Mr Merrick: Yes. Q72 Lyn Brown: Do you accept the premise put to us earlier that tourism is not perceived as an industry by government or government policy? Mr Thompson: Perhaps I may start on tourism. We recognise tourism as an important sector in the regional economic strategy. It is one of the 10 business sectors that we prioritise, so at regional level we recognise that and reflect it in the sort of interventions that we make in the most needy resorts. Q73 Chair: In each RDA is there a regional coastal town strategy? Mr Wray: We do not have a strategy, but one of the things we did shortly after our establishment in response to the submissions that we had on the first strategy was to commission consultants to look very carefully at the future economic roles and possibilities for all our different coastal resorts. That work was commissioned as much to advise and educate ourselves and the local authorities as to produce a rigid strategy, but we have agreed informally some very short documents which we call strategy agreements with some of the more important towns and cities. Mr Thompson: We do not have a special coastal strategy within our economic strategy, but what guides our investment in coastal towns is the emphasis on tourism and the marine sectors as two of our priority business sectors. Mr Merrick: We do not have a dedicated coastal strategy. We have a regional towns and cities strategy which has a typology of places within it. One of the five is coastal towns; another is concerns with areas around port towns, which have a slightly different driver in terms of how they are developing. As to tourism, that is one of the key sectors that has underpinned our two previous regional economic strategies. Q74 Anne Main: Do you agree that if they are only 180 degrees in extent they have only half the ability to generate money? Do you agree that there should be some mechanism to direct funding to coastal towns? Mr Wray: One must bear in mind that what really matters is the totality of public sector support which comes through a variety of programmes. It comes through the transport programmes, which are now administered through regional funding allocations, through housing programmes - the regional housing strategy - and through our own budgets. There are still very substantial budgets that we need to influence and deploy to support coastal towns which will not be within a ring-fenced budget for coastal towns. Mr Thompson: On that point, it depends largely on the type of coastal town that we are talking about. I see two distinct categories: the resorts and some of our port and industrial coastal towns. I believe that the nature of these and the economic development projects or programmes that are used by the RDAs and other partners are perhaps what matter more than necessarily the hinterland or population catchment. Q75 Chair: I want to pick up a point on the SWRDA. You have the Market and Coastal Towns Association, do you not? Mr Thompson: We have a lively coastal towns programme, yes. Q76 Chair: Therefore, to that extent you have a coastal towns strategy? Mr Thompson: Indeed. That programme is specifically for marketing coastal towns. Fifty towns are in that programme, of which 11 are coastal towns. Q77 Dr Pugh: I was a little surprised to find that you did not have coastal strategies. Every region has a coast in a sense, just as every region has a city. Do you have a tourism strategy? Mr Lovejoy: For the South East, yes. Mr Thompson: Yes, we do for the South West. Q78 Dr Pugh: To be fair, I think that the experience of RDAs with regard to tourism is mixed, in the sense that they only recently assumed extra responsibilities in that respect. Given that you do not have a coastal strategy, can you understand the feelings that come across from some coastal resorts? Skegness wrote: "The record of success for the RDA and other bodies has been less than satisfactory. Most appear to concentrate on areas where they are based. It is difficult to identify where or how the East Midlands Development Agency has in a major way supported or developed the economy of Skegness." You must understand where some of the resorts are coming from here. They believe that basically you are centred very much in the industrial heartlands of your areas and have a limited perception of this issue. Mr Lovejoy: If I may make an observation from the point of view of a regional development agency that is in the process of refreshing and developing a coastal strategy, while that may be a useful contribution I am not sure that that deals with those concerns. There are a large number of settlements along the coast with different potential and also different degrees of readiness for major investment. There is an issue over prioritising and some will always feel that there is further progress to be made. We need to make choices at the regional level. Q79 Dr Pugh: Is that because to some extent you are involved occasionally in the business of backing winners and looking at resorts which have the capacity for economic regeneration, to some extent sidelining those resorts that belong to the past? Mr Lovejoy: I would not say "sidelining". We are always looking to raise and release some untapped economic potential, but for that to work there needs to be both an issue to address and a degree of agreement and common purpose around the priorities to be addressed. We can help secure the second but not alone. Therefore, we need to work with local actors and work it through according to local potential. Q80 Dr Pugh: Would you say that part of your sensitivity to the issue is the fact that you are in an area which does not have a particularly strong industrial conurbation? This applies probably also to the East of England Development Agency. Mr Lovejoy: In the case of the South East, the sensitivity would arise primarily from the fact that per head of population we have a lower proportion of funding than any other, so there is a risk of communities and interest across the region being excluded from the benefit that the regional development agency can bring precisely because its resources are so limited. Q81 Dr Pugh: To test the sensitivity a little, the former Minister of Tourism said that every coastal town you ever go to says that it needs better transport links. I think this is recognised as a problem that is faced by all coastal resorts. What specific measures are you taking in your own areas to address these problems? Mr Thompson: There are a couple of examples in the South West where the region, not just the RDA but other regional bodies and local authorities, is trying to persuade the Department of Transport to look at a couple of key link roads that would benefit resorts. One is the new link road and bypass for Torquay; the other is a link road for the Weymouth area, particularly related to the development of the 2012 Olympics sailing site at Portland. That road would obviously benefit that particular event. Those are two specific examples. Q82 Dr Pugh: Mr Wray, do you have similar examples? Mr Wray: In the North West the picture varies, in the sense that Blackpool has very good communication links. It has motorway almost to the doorstep and a relatively uncongested special road to the centre of Blackpool. It has fairly good road links, but obviously they suffer from congestion from time to time. It also has an airport. Q83 Dr Pugh: And outside Blackpool? Mr Wray: Outside Blackpool the two key issues are access to Southport and access to Morecambe. Dealing first with Morecambe, we have consistently supported the Lancaster bypass, be it the northern or western route. We are now firmly behind the northern route. There will be a public inquiry into that shortly. We have lobbied very strongly for that route which will deliver excellent access to Morecambe. As to Southport, the position is slightly more difficult. In the past we have supported an improved road link from the M58. That has not made it into the regional funding allocations and list of priorities, but we have a scheme in the list which will provide access to Liverpool. Discussions are under way with the local authority to see whether that can also help improve access. Q84 Dr Pugh: Mr Merrick and Mr Lovejoy, do you have examples in your areas? Mr Merrick: I can give two specific examples. In one case we have played a regional advocacy role with national government. There was an announcement this morning about major transport schemes which have the potential to be funded through the transport innovation fund. We developed the evidence case and lobbied government effectively about links to our ports which in the east of England play a national economic role. We have 53 per cent of the national container traffic moving through ports in the region. Clearly, we want to encourage as much of that as possible to go onto non-road modal shifts. Today, there has been an announcement about rail routes from the east of England to the north and London to enhance capacity. That is the kind of national and economic role that our coastal areas play. Secondly, at the specific locational level we have established a number of urban regeneration companies in coastal towns: Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Southend. There has been more local work to develop the business case and the potential funding mechanisms for local infrastructure investment to support the growth of those towns, including their tourism economies. Mr Lovejoy: Similarly, in terms of advocacy we have continued to promote the needs of the Sussex coast in particular for improvements to the A27 corridor, which implies road, rail and other solutions, in the aftermath of a multi-modal study that concluded that there was no need for a major highway enhancement there. In terms of more specific activities, we invested in and contributed to a fixed-term revenue support grant for early services from Hastings into London and late services from London back to Hastings specifically to demonstrate the potential of Hastings as a location to London residents and commuters. I am pleased to say that after six months the franchise operator took up both services as permanent ones. Q85 Chair: Mr Lovejoy, I want to ask about Objective 2 structural funding. For example, Thanet has benefited from such funding, but that programme is due to end in 2008. Do you believe that coastal towns will suffer disproportionately from the end of Objective 2 funding, and what will replace it? If not, does this mean that coastal towns will be even lower in the pecking order for regional funds? Mr Lovejoy: I should say first that the South East is in an unusual situation in that only two of our 55 district council areas, Hastings and Thanet, have been eligible for Objective 2 funding. Therefore, the impact would be rather more localised and rather different from that experienced in other regions. It is certainly the case that in those two areas concentrated programmes of additional capital investment have been put to good effect in terms of releasing land for infrastructure and supporting businesses, and there are real concerns about the forward impact as those programmes cease. I think we can demonstrate in both cases that certainly at regional level the needs of those areas have been recognised in the regional programmes that my organisation directly supports and in local frameworks for action that we have agreed with local partners to spend regional money at local level. It is the case that the replacement of the former Objective 2 will have a less area-specific focus to it, which means there will be new regional initiatives that can be applied across the region, including those two areas, but we understand their concerns. Mr Thompson: I would echo the point that we are looking to work closely with local economic partnerships to ensure that the supply of matching funding for key projects is maintained when Objective 2 eventually finishes. I add that there are still some very important projects being built and funded now under Objective 2, so it has a tail of about a couple of years. Mr Merrick: The east of England is like the South East. We had relatively few areas that qualified for Objective 2: Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Southend. There is a need to look at the transition. In the context of a regional development agency which has 0.1 per cent of regional GDP and public expenditure of £24 billion, I think we have to line up existing funding and look at what is a relatively small amount of funding in the great scheme of things and also how we catalyse the market to deliver. Q86 Mr Betts: When we visited Exmouth the other week we saw a situation where quite a percentage of the population is retired and a lower percentage of the population works but not in Exmouth; they work in Exeter. Is it important that coastal towns should be economically self-sustaining, or does it really matter if they become retirement homes or commuter belts by the sea? Mr Thompson: Perhaps I may pick up another example. In my region Weston-super-Mare has a very similar demographic trend, with a large proportion of people commuting to Bristol for work and some retirees and other people living in the town. We think it is important in the particular case of Weston, which is a large town of about 100,000 people, to try to make it more self-sufficient economically and attract business and employment to the town so that people who form a very skilled workforce - they work in computer and aerospace companies in Bristol - could work in the town itself. In the particular case of Weston we would like to make it more self-contained. Q87 Chair: Why is it important to make it self-contained? Mr Thompson: With its relationship to the greater Bristol area, we see commuting as an issue; it is causing congestion on the motorway and unsustainable patterns of travel. A big town like Weston of 100,000 should really have its own economic base, not act as a dormitory for a city 20 miles away. Mr Wray: Whilst I agree with that up to a point, the residential population of coastal towns is rather important because the demands that they generate are the base load of demands for restaurants, shops, pubs - all the sort of facilities that tourists use at certain times. In relation to Morecambe, for example, we are quite anxious that in future it should develop a residential suburban role, not a long distance commuting role, in relation to Lancaster which is only a few miles away. Mr Lovejoy: I have nothing specific to add, other than that to allow that trend to develop through a policy of benign neglect as we have highlighted risks leaving economic potential unused. It would be difficult to justify leaving an area that could make an additional £13 billion contribution to the UK economy, were it to perform at the national level, to continue to drift behind national and not regional averages. Chair: Thank you very much for your evidence. As with the other witnesses, if when you leave you think of something that you should have said or particular examples we shall be happy to receive them. |