Coastal Towns In Cycle Of Poverty

[rollover]

Some towns were suffering "severe social breakdown". They were also becoming dumping grounds for vulnerable people such as children in care and ex-offenders. This has been further depressing the desirability of such areas and so perpetuating the cycle.

The CSJ report, entitled Turning the Tide, examined conditions in five coastal towns in England and Wales - Rhyl in north Wales, Margate in Kent, Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, Blackpool in Lancashire and Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. Whilst each town has its own particular problems, it said "a recurring theme had been that of poverty attracting poverty". Many seaside towns' economies were badly affected by the advent of cheaper foreign travel in the 1970s, it said. This led in turn to a depleted economy, low skills base and "dangerously high levels of family breakdown". The total working-age benefits bill for the five towns is almost £2bn, it says - and the human cost of their high unemployment rates is "more considerable still". Link

Not everyone is enjoying HPI.

[winkie]

Not everyone is enjoying HPI.

Is HPI something to be enjoyed?............at least when homes become cheaper people will then be able to move there and afford to buy them.....more people can bring in more work if the policy makers make it attractive to do business there.

[interestrateripoff]

Going the same way as Detroit.

Not sure foreign holidays are all that cheap now, but you more likely to get guaranteed sun.

Plus as a lot of these places now look like dumps who wants to go their to holiday?

[durhamborn]

High fuel tax isn't helping.Many of these seaside towns relied on day trippers and people staying for the weekend.Now that is costs a days wages just to get there and back for many people its not worth it.

There is probably nothing more soul destroying than a run down coastal town out of season.Morrissey nailed the utter despair of those places,

[Eddie_George]

[durhamborn]

Great minds Eddie

The coastal towns have gone the same way as the industrial towns.It all comes down to wages being crushed.The rentiers are sucking so much now that unless your one of them its very unlikely work/wages will sustain much of a life.Underneath the surface many places are not far removed from the middle of the 19th century.

The lunacy of thinking a service economy would pay the same wages as a manufacturing one is coming home to roost.

Help to buy will save the economy though and everyone can dance to the sunlit uplands.

[Si1]

but I thought they were a money making machine for savvy baby boomer holiday home owners?

[tomandlu]

but I thought they were a money making machine for savvy baby boomer holiday home owners?

That'll be small coastal villages, rather than the old larger resorts I'd guess. There are a few exceptions (Brighton, etc.), but anyone spending five minutes in most of the old resorts would look for somewhere else to buy if they had any sense.

[LiveinHope]

Eastbroune pier

and promenade

20 miles east

Hastings pier

and promenade

Edited August 5, 2013 by LiveinHope

[dryrot]

This has been going on for years. In the 90s I used to travel on business to Blackpool every 2 months or so. My contacts there bemoaned the conversion of old holiday boarding houses to DHSS tenants. It was easier for the owners, and in fairness the old packed holiday to Bpool was long gone. A big problems was those on benefits got rent paid but nothing to put into the economy (unlike the holidaymakers of yore).

My solution? err... perhaps low tax esp on alcohol; less benefit tourism; low house prices...

D.

(awaits re-education police)

[iamnumerate]

I thought that everyone knew this? I heard the term costa del dole to talk about Margate etc 18+ years ago.

[tomandlu]

Eastbroune pier

and promenade

20 miles east

Hastings pier

and promenade

That's more St Leonards than Hastings (borders anyway). The 'posh' bit of Hastings is okay, mainly because they still actually use it for a small fishing fleet. St Leonards is certainly struggling. Some lovely architecture, but visibly crumbling away and a troubled populace. Very sad - it's like watching your granny turn tricks to fund her crack habit.

Edited August 5, 2013 by tomandlu

[thecrashingisles]

Eastbroune pier

and promenade

20 miles east

Hastings pier

and promenade

What a difference a WTA tour event can make.

[Paece]

That's more St Leonards than Hastings (borders anyway). The 'posh' bit of Hastings is okay, mainly because they still actually use it for a small fishing fleet. St Leonards is certainly struggling. Some lovely architecture, but visibly crumbling away and a troubled populace. Very sad - it's like watching your granny turn tricks to fund her crack habit.

+1

I occasionally passed through St Leonards Warrior Square and it always gave me the heebie jeebies, it was like going back to the 1930's depression era, run down, hopeless and desperate. Cheap properties but strange rootless atmosphere. I met a few locals and knew if I lived there it wouldn't be long before I ended up like them.

Great Yarmouth is another, the amount of poundlands and second hand shops is incredible.

It's like financial gangrene/frostbite, the extremities die first ...

[winkie]

Some of these places now are very depressing, depressionally disappointing.

[Steppenpig]

For some reason, I always quite like the sound of Hastings, (but I do realise, from all the posts, that I am delusioned) You'd think they'd be able to make a bit mor from their historical associations though. I like the sound of Scarborough too.

Didn't Brighton used to be quit seedy? Isn't it time for a new up and coming coastal resort town?

[tomandlu]

For some reason, I always quite like the sound of Hastings

There's a picturesque (and expensive) bit of Hastings (basically the eastern end), and it goes downhill as you approach St Leonards. My sister lives in St Leonards, hence my vague familiarity with the area...

[SNACR]

Probably the most striking is Jaywick and what is also quite surprising is a lot of the worst aren't that far from the magical emerald city of London.

[peakbear]

There's a picturesque (and expensive) bit of Hastings (basically the eastern end), and it goes downhill as you approach St Leonards. My sister lives in St Leonards, hence my vague familiarity with the area...

I think Hastings is pretty nice including the St Leonards end. I was thinking of moving there this summer but the area does really suffer from a lack of jobs. Was looking at renting a south facing sea view flat in Marine Court which you can get for a very reasonable 400-500 month. I quite like around Folkstone too. They are by no means perfect but I think the positives easily outweigh the negatives.

[Harry Monk]

the area does really suffer from a lack of jobs.

That's the nub of it, no jobs. There used to be a seaside resort industry, mass tourism, but this evaporated with the advent of cheap air travel, and it won't ever come back.

[motch]

Some of the seaside Towns I see could do with a few million injected into doing up some of the derelict and half-collapsed buildings, often on a main run through part of the Town and projects a bad image for the area, may well only be half a dozen or so buildings in each place which needs proper sorting out.

Plus a bit more things to do to keep the locals and tourists happy for a bit longer, will then spend some money whilst there too.

[LiveinHope]

I think Hastings is pretty nice including the St Leonards end. I was thinking of moving there this summer but the area does really suffer from a lack of jobs. Was looking at renting a south facing sea view flat in Marine Court which you can get for a very reasonable 400-500 month. I quite like around Folkstone too. They are by no means perfect but I think the positives easily outweigh the negatives.

Spent 18 years in Hastings & St Leonards. My grandmother lived in Marine Court for a time. Don't DO IT. The promenade infront is rife with dropouts after dark. Even Bexhill is marginally better and that's saying something - it has the De La Warr Pavillion -although it also has some very weird modern promenade shelters. As far as you can go east in Hastings towards the Old Town, George Street and towards the fishing net huts is OK - although the new Art Gallery has stirred emotions - but as soon as you head west and get to the 'fountain' in Hastings, it's exponentially declined downhill and stays pretty much the same to the Bathing Pool at the west end of the promenade. The best bit was the garden behind the Masonic Hall in St Leonard's, but they were ruined in a revamp. The old Central Cricket ground was good until they knocked it down 3 decades ago for a shopping centre. I'd draw a radius around St Leonards that includes Hastings, Ore and Silverhill. I hope never to return. Cooden, Sedlescombe, Battle, Rye and Winchelsea are all very nice though. Battle and Rye are probably the best if you're thinking of moving to the area, with Battle having the best connections. Norman's Bay is interesting too.

Edited August 5, 2013 by LiveinHope

[WestEndWendy]

Spent 18 years in Hastings & St Leonards. My grandmother lived in Marine Court for a time. Don't DO IT. The promenade infront is rife with dropouts after dark. Even Bexhill is marginally better and that's saying something - it has the De La Warr Pavillion -although it also has some very weird modern promenade shelters. As far as you can go east in Hastings towards the Old Town, George Street and towards the fishing net huts is OK - although the new Art Gallery has stirred emotions - but as soon as you head west and get to the 'fountain' in Hastings, it's exponentially declined downhill and stays pretty much the same to the Bathing Pool at the west end of the promenade. The best bit was the garden behind the Masonic Hall in St Leonard's, but they were ruined in a revamp. The old Central Cricket ground was good until they knocked it down 3 decades ago for a shopping centre. I'd draw a radius around St Leonards that includes Hastings, Ore and Silverhill. I hope never to return. Cooden, Sedlescombe, Battle, Rye and Winchelsea are all very nice though. Battle and Rye are probably the best if you're thinking of moving to the area, with Battle having the best connections. Norman's Bay is interesting too.

Just to balance this ... I moved to Hastings (the eastern end, above the Old Town) a year ago and absolutely love it. I've just come back this evening from various events in the Old Town for carnival week. I did read various "don't DO IT" comments about Hastings before I moved, but everything so far has been great. Keep waiting for something dreadful to happen but so far have lovely neighbours, cheap house, country walks, quirky architecture, and the sea. My quality of life has massively improved. However, I do still commute to London - so have not yet found a local job.

[Turned Out Nice Again]

Just to balance this ... I moved to Hastings (the eastern end, above the Old Town) a year ago and absolutely love it. I've just come back this evening from various events in the Old Town for carnival week. I did read various "don't DO IT" comments about Hastings before I moved, but everything so far has been great. Keep waiting for something dreadful to happen but so far have lovely neighbours, cheap house, country walks, quirky architecture, and the sea. My quality of life has massively improved. However, I do still commute to London - so have not yet found a local job.

Worthing is not bad either. we'll have been 2 years here come November and i'm not missing London much.

definitely better quality of life than we had before.

[Ungeared]

Eastbroune pier

and promenade

20 miles east

Hastings pier

and promenade

I remember the jubilations in the town just over 10 years ago when the money was going to roll in,

http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/local/163-400-million-new-dawn-1-1442318

Hastings at the time had a terrible crime rate, the worst in the South East, with contract killings not unusual, every rouge landlord set up shop in the town:

http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/local/i-am-not-a-slum-landlord-says-property-man-1-1443958

http://www.webspawner.com/users/marcelcrook/

I had dealings with the above with regards a Freehold purchase, the Solicitor I used stalled the process for 18 months, I later found out that he was from the same Masonic lodge as Sulc, although at the time Hastings Council did attempt to rid the town of the rubbish, I know from experience that these sort of people are still working within the town, it's not a place you'd want to buy a leasehold property, even with the leasehold reform act.

http://justice4katrinataylor.blogspot.co.uk/

Quote:

"Make no mistakes, we know who killed Katrina Taylor and we know Sussex Police is protecting a known Crime-Lord called Mark Slade (Sulc), and his gang of criminals who killed her"

Would you want to live there? lol