Memorandum by the Coastal Academy (CT
02)
1. Coastal towns on the East Coast suffer
from extreme isolation and a seasonal tourist economy. The needs
of Coastal Towns are exacerbated by the mobility of the population
which impinges on education achievement, low level rented accommodation,
poor quality housing stock, low skill/low wage seasonal employment
and heavy reliance on the benefit system.
The Coastal hinterland has isolated homesteads,
frequently of very poor quality. There are few job opportunities
in agriculture which has become more highly mechanised and less
labour intensive.
Young people in Coastal areas suffer from low
aspirations by virtue of career and job opportunities not being
available in their home area. Therefore enhanced aspirations carry
with them the responsibility of needing to move away from the
home area. The young people are emotionally less "streetwise"
than their urban cousins and find it extremely difficult to make
that move out of their familiar territory. The more able young
people frequently leave the area and county to enter Higher Education
at age 18 and do not return. The job prospects in the Coastal
area are simply not sufficiently adventurous.
There is an argument for saying that low aspirations
do not encourage frustration at the lack of opportunity but this
is wholly intolerable. The young people in Coastal towns should
have the same opportunity as their urban compatriots.
Need: (i) Incentives to business to
establish their factory/business base in coastal areas so that
employment and training opportunities are more readily available.
2. Several of the schools in coastal regions
are poorly equipped, have high pupil mobility, additional behaviour
and emotional turbulence. Most have a high %age of their roll
on the SEN register.
Need: All schools to be equipped to the
highest standard for pupils who frequently have complex needs.
3. Recruitment and retention of staff particularly
in the public sector is a constant challenge. With many services
based in Lincoln, it is a 1.5 hour journey for a professional
to attend an appointment in a coastal area and a 1.5 hour return
journey. Therefore three hours of the working day is lost in travel.
Need: (i) Funding to meet the need of
basing services in coastal towns.
4. The coastal areas do not have critical
mass of population and therefore smaller numbers need to be acceptable
and services not penalised for this.
Need: (i) Learning groups at whatever
level need to be able to operate with small numbers of learners
ie three or four.
(ii) School staffing ratios need to acknowledge
the high %age of pupils with complex needs to allow for smaller
class sizes and more pastoral care.
(iii) Adult learning tutors need to be paid
travel time and travel expenses in order to get them to travel
as far as coastal areas.
(iv) Continuing opportunities to learn are
necessary so that learners do not lose the learning habit. The
lack of tutors mitigates against this.
(v) To encourage staff into public services
in the coastal regions, an incentive allowance is crucial, similar
to the London Weighting.
5. With no Further Education college in
East Lindsey, the provision for post-16 education is poor. A bus
journey from Mablethorpe to Boston to access FE provision can
take 1.5 hours each way so the drop-out rate of students is high.
Only the most motivated will stay the course. Leaving home at
7.00 am and returning at 7.00 pm demands huge tenacity.
Young people who are categorised as NEET are
so often failed by not being able to gain employment at the end
of their course. There is no incentive for employers to employ
these vulnerable young people, who will demand time and nurturing
care to develop into valuable employees.
Need: (i) A Vocational Learning Centre
to be built in Mablethorpe to serve Mablethorpe and its hinterland.
(ii) Small starter business units in Mablethorpe
and Skegness to provide guided employment and training for the
large numbers of young people who qualify as NEET (Not in Employment,
Education and Training).
(iii) Student travel passes to allow students
to take advantage of any form of public transport at any time,
to access learning eg Dial a Ride, Connect Up, service buses.
6. Owing to the nature of the pupil cohort
in coastal areas, results from the schools are often less than
favourable. Yet many of these schools have poor facilities—one
secondary school has no gymnasium or indoor games facility whatsoever.
This is not an equitable system for pupils who often have diverse
and complex needs.
Need: (i) To abolish the selective system
so that all young people learn together, rather than proliferating
high-performing schools and "sink" schools, with 75%
of the population thinking they are failures.
(ii) To invest heavily in the school stock
and bring forward by several years "Building Schools for
the Future" in Lincolnshire.
7. There is a propensity of older people
in the coastal areas. This encourages developers to build bungalow
housing rather than family accommodation. This precludes families
from seeing the area as a suitable and viable area in which to
settle.
Need: (i) Developers need to be encouraged
through the Deposit Draft of the area to build family accommodation.
The Planning Authority needs to take a broad view of how they
want to support the development of the area.
8. English coastal areas find it impossible
to be a 24/7 resort. There is, however, no shortage of creative
ideas of what could be done to improve this. The funding systems
and bidding processes are such an obstacle! Even the more informed
and astute coastal inhabitant is severely intimidated by bid forms
of countless pages, requiring numerous information and calculations/targets
beyond the understanding of many.
Need: (i) Streamline the funding and
bidding process so that there is always a bid support partner
who will come to the area, meet the group and complete the bid
forms with them. (The Community Foundation Local Network Fund
does this extremely well.)
9. The Combined Action Teams have been developed
in Mablethorpe, Skegness and Boston to improve delivery of services
to children, young people and their families through multi-agency
working. These have been developed within existing resources but
still require minimal funding for admin/management. They have
proved their worth in getting services to where they are needed
more quickly and in an integrated fashion. They touch, however,
the tip of an iceberg of need.
Need: (i) There is a shortage of staff
in almost all areas—education, health visitors, school nurses,
speech and language, educational psychology, education welfare,
Connexions, Youth Service etc.
(ii) Not all staff have access to a computer
and are not able to be contacted by email.
10. Many of the coastal areas look dowdy,
run down and in need of care and attention. The economic base
is such that business people operate on incredibly small margins
and are unable to invest in additional expenses.
Need: (i) To offer business rates or
incentives that allows businesses to ensure the upkeep of their
property and business premises.
11. Further investment is needed in Skegness
and Louth Hospitals as these are the only hospitals that serve
the coastal areas. Lincoln and Grimsby hospitals are many miles
distant and many residents have neither the funding nor the transport
to journey there. There is a plethora of very old vehicles travelling
the Lincolnshire coastal roads!
Need: (i) To further enhance the facilities
at Skegness and Louth Hospitals so that patients can receive top
quality treatment.
(ii) Regular visits by consultants to take
clinics at Skegness and Louth Hospitals.
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