Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden has renewed the call for a cross-department joined-up regeneration strategy for seaside and coastal towns while chairing a conference on seaside heritage in Hastings this week. 

Mr Marsden was speaking while chairing the opening-day session of ‘Seaside Heritage: Colourful Past, Bright Future’—a national conference organised by English Heritage to look at how the historic centres and heritage of towns such as Blackpool, Hastings and Margate can play a central role in their regeneration strategies.  

He heard his Parliamentary colleague, Phyllis Starkey MP (and chair of the Communities Select Committee that produced a report in the spring calling for more Government support for seaside towns) urging greater working-together by civil servants and ministers to tackle the ‘ring of deprivation’ that touches many seaside towns. “Existing financial formulas don’t properly recognise the extra burdens on seaside town services from tourism, an older population base and the extensive historic and leisure facilities they have to offer visitors” she said. 

“Phyllis Starkey and her select committee have hit the nail on the head” Mr Marsden said at the conference reception. “We need that joined-up approach and imaginative new incentives to encourage new uses for and restoration of heritage and listed buildings in Blackpool and elsewhere. Reducing VAT on repairs or target funding for specific heritage areas in towns like Blackpool whose renewal would attract both residents and visitors. I’m optimistic our lobbying will produce results.” 

Also at the conference were Blackpool Council, Head of Libraries Pat Hansell, Historic Townscape Manager Carl Carrington and Blackpool historian and one of the coordinators of the town’s bid for World Heritage status, Professor John Walton of the University of Central Lancashire.