| PARLIAMENT ALL AT SEA |
| Monday, 23 October 2006 | |
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It's 6 o'clock I look at my watch and struggle out of bed and soon out of the flat and bleary eyed make my way to the tube and Victoria Station where I rendezvous with my other Select Committee colleagues as we board the train to Margate. This is not 'a jolly' but part of the Select Committee's enquiry into the state of our seaside towns.- an enquiry we began back in June but which has hitherto consisted in long evidence sessions with host of witnesses from councils, development agencies, tourism and government departments (some from Southport) . Today is a trip into the field or rather down to the beach and accompanying us is a team from BBC Radio 4 who are doing a programme about our enquiry. Since it started there has been a lot of interest in our findings which will result in a report the government have to respond to.  The big question we are asking is what are the distinctive problems seaside towns face , what kind of future do they have and why do some seem more ready for it than others. As we arrive in Margate those questions come to the fore. We are first taken to a new luxury flat development at an old sea bathing hospital which looks really nice. While the BBC record, the manageress of the development tells us and the world what a great future Margate has and how unlike it is to other resorts on this coast. They've actually got sand not pebbles on the beach.  Our next stop though is Dreamworld with its listed cyclone. It was built before Pleasureland in imitation of Coney Island in the USA. It's now largely desolate with the area looking grim. Its apparently only occupied by travelling showmen two months of the year. The cyclone will cost over 2 million pounds if its ever to be put back into operation and there is much suspicion between the site owners and the community. We speak to a very positive campaigner who hopes to see Dreamworld back in action some day but others seem less sure. Down the road by the bay is being planned a new attraction- an art gallery dedicated to the painter Turner who holidayed and kept a mistress in Margate. Looking across the bay on misty October day, it all looks as though Turner might have painted it. Soon we end up in a room for a meeting with all the movers and shakers in Margate who try to put across their view of the town's future. Like Turner paintings it seems a bit hazy. We finish with interviews with young people who express their boredom and disappointment with the town. And then its on to lunch with Canterbury council in Whistable a small fishing town with nice little shops and an affluent feeling. Its built a reputation on its fish and oyster restaurants and little else but it all seems to work. Upmarket visitors come from far and wide for lunch, dinner and stroll on the harbour side. After lunch its back in the coach to Hastings or the costa del dole as it used to be known. Boxed in by hills, it has had major housing problems .As the tourists have gone elsewhere benefit claimants have filled the former boarding houses. Although they have history and an exciting furnicular railway up the cliff, the Pier which in private ownership is derelict and an eyesore. Talking  to the council, they no longer see tourism as the main focus of the town. They want housing renewal better schools, transport and local businesses joined up by broadband. Like nearly every seaside town they are handicapped by poor road access but they are very proud of their new station where the committee caught the train back to London.On the way back we mulled over what we had learned but I personally couldn't help thinking that despite our problems the future is a lot brighter for Southport. Next week we get to grill government ministers about the plight of the seaside towns and what they're doing about it. |