Appendix 1: Letter from the British Resorts
and Destinations Association (BRADA)
I have recently returned from our 2007 Annual Conference
in Eastbourne, which was themed around coastal regeneration.
Much of the two-day event revolved around your committee's excellent,
very detailed and accurate summary of the social and economic
issues facing coastal towns.
As a result of our discussions, members of the Association
directed that I write to congratulate you and the committee on
an excellent report. Sadly, they also directed that I should
write to lodge our displeasure at what we jointly view as the
Government's complacent response to it. I was asked to formally
request that you and the committee consider tackling Government
on the response. We would ask that you do so on our behalf and
on behalf of all the coastal towns, whose plight, we now believe,
Government feels it can legitimately continue to ignore.
It is difficult, in polite circles, to accurately
describe to you the depth of displeasure that the Government response
has created among many Elected Members from all parties, public
sector officers and our colleagues and partners in the private
sector. In essence, the response offers little or nothing new;
agreeing only with those few things which had no actual Government
duty or action attached. It responds to almost all the substantive
issues with vague or, on occasion, inaccurate descriptions of
individual actions being taken by others. On examination, most,
if not all, do little to address the common problems experienced
elsewhere in all other coastal towns.
To our mind, the Government's response simply serves
to reinforce the point that the issues of coastal towns are not
widely understood and that Government departments, individually
and jointly, are not doing enough to improve the lot of England's
coastal towns and the millions of people who live and work in
them. The Association therefore urges you and the committee to
consider pursuing the coastal towns issue with Central and, where
appropriate, with Regional Government.
P.T. Hampson, Director,
BRADA
20 June 2007
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