Seaside Showdown

Whether it was in the form of a weekend day trip or your annual family holiday destination, millions of people have sampled the simple delights a British seaside resort had to offer.

Up until the late seventies people still flocked to the coast, and a short break in one of the local hotels or B&Bs was still a regular thing for many. So for somebody that walked these crowded promenades around thirty years ago its never going to be easy to accept the fact that lots of these places have now become some of the least visited and most undesirable areas of the UK.

For years we have had the same old excuses from local authorities that really should know better. The popular one is that one summer we all selfishly decided to jump on a plane and fly to Benidorm for our holidays and because it was sunny and beer was cheap we never went to Clacton ever again.

I don’t know how they ever got away with that one as a quick check of the facts actually reveals the exact opposite. Back then more people decided to stay in Britain for there holidays than go abroad and that’s a statistic that still stands today.

Theres still plenty of older folk that prefer not to stand for hours in crowded airport check in lines and a lot of them were in a war at one point and don’t take too kindly to the staff asking them to remove their sandals and have their Trilby electronically scanned.

Air travel is no more of an excuse for abandoning the beaches than the weather is, the climate in Britain has always been rubbish and people still turned up in their thousands for seaside holidays.

The simple truth is that all the money made from these areas wasn’t re-invested and people get a bit sick of paddling amongst turds and walking miles to find an open public toilet and so they said “bollocks to it”.

My childhood seaside town was Whitley bay on the north east coast. It was only when I returned there a couple of years ago I appreciated the way these places had been left to expire.

Because its not as popular as it once was should not be used as an excuse for failing to sweep the streets and cut the grass. I´m sorry, but a council that closes the fairground and then builds a school on the site is not seriously committed to tourism in my opinion.

We need huge investment in these areas now but they shouldn’t have been left to fall into such a state in the first place.

Take a short journey beyond Whitley bay and check out South Shields. Same coastline, same shite weather, but they still have immaculate gardens clean streets and their own fairground, and despite the aeroplanes flying overhead, this place was still busy on a cloudy weekday afternoon, its exactly as I remember it back in 1976. Contrast that with the cider drinking hoodies sat on the Vauxhall Corsa bonnet a bit further along the coast and its obviously a tale of two contrasting local authorities. Its high time these places were spruced up and never again subjected to this kind of neglect. The weather is improving and the beaches are winning awards. Make them pleasant to visit again and we will come back to them in droves as our families did for a couple of hundred years.

SoapBoxTwo…..All At Sea…

MY TWO CENTS........by SB1

Well my friend, hitting the nail firmly on the head once again. There are areas of Britain that have no pride left. The thing that saddens me is that we could do better in many areas. Britain is a rich country – at least the revenue from our taxes say we should be – its a tough one to know where to start with this. Do we tackle the gangs of kids on the Corsa bonnets first – give them work, actually pay them to do what needs doing. Give them a sense of purpose and pride in their town, thus releasing the burden on the police, and the constant cost of cleaning up after their cider fueled graffiti parties. Or do we spend on the cleanup and rejuvenation of these areas and hope the kids get bored of insulting everyone that walks by. Its not a difficult choice is it. We all have a vote and we have to use it wisely, so if you live in these areas, and you actually care about living in a dump and want to do something about it – tell your politicians that you will vote based on their actions. Do nothing about it - NO VOTE. I think you will find there might be one or two honest ones that also don´t like living in a dump.