- Unemployment is twice or even several times the national average
- Plummeting property prices mean hotels turned into cheap housing
- Report said it was a case of 'poverty attracting poverty'
By TAMARA COHEN
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Declining seaside towns have become ‘dumping grounds’ following the destruction of their economies by cheap foreign travel, a report warns today.
Once-thriving resorts are now heavily populated by welfare claimants, those with substance abuse and mental health problems and patients leaving the care system, it claims.
Unemployment is twice or even several times the national average – with working age benefits costing almost £2billion per year.
Run-down: Seaside towns like Margate are full of empty shops and benefits claimants
A report from the Centre for Social Justice said seaside towns underwent rapid decline in the 1970s with the advent of cheap flights abroad.
While some, such as Brighton and Bournemouth, have retained their tourist industry by attracting the business community, many others have suffered ‘severe social breakdown’, the report says.
The numbers of pupils leaving school with no qualifications, teenage pregnancy, lone parenting, and joblessness are among the highest in the country.
In areas of Blackpool, the researchers found more than 40 per cent of children were fatherless, and in one deprived area of Rhyl, north Wales, 67 per cent of people were out of work. The national average is 7.8 per cent.
One phenomenon found in all five towns they examined – Blackpool, Rhyl, Margate in Kent, Clacton-on-Sea in Essex and Great Yarmouth in Norfolk – was a plummeting of property prices which has seen former hotels and bed and breakfasts in town centres turned into cheap housing.
Desolate: The seaside town of Jaywick, near Clacton on Sea, is one of the most run down areas of Britain
'Dumping ground': Jaywick, where unusually high numbers of residents are on out-of-work benefits
This has attracted vulnerable people from nearby towns and cities, putting a drain on public services, said the CSJ, a conservative-leaning think-tank founded by the Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.
The report said: ‘A recurring theme has been that of poverty attracting poverty.
‘Many parts of these towns have become dumping grounds, further depressing the desirability of such areas and so perpetuating the cycle.’
Of the 20 neighbourhoods across the UK with the highest levels of out-of-work benefits, seven are in coastal towns that once attracted millions of holidaymakers.
The Turning the Tide report says there is a clear case for more investment in transport and infrastructure in coastal areas.
The report recommends giving these towns funding for initiatives such as improving local housing and schools to attract more upwardly-mobile residents, and grants for businesses outside the tourist industry.
It claims the new Universal Credit benefits system would help more unemployed into minimum-wage jobs. And it says the Government’s Coastal Communities Fund should be devolved to a more local level.
Traditional high streets are set to disappear and be replaced by small clusters of shops, with empty properties converted into homes.
Planning minister Nick Boles said councils should attempt to preserve high street shopping on just one or two ‘prime streets’.
Town hall chiefs will get greater freedom to convert retail premises into private housing because we are doing more shopping online.
CSj Report http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/UserStorage/pdf/Pdf%20reports/Turning-the-Tide.pdf
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2384597/Our-seaside-town-dumping-grounds-Faded-resorts-filled-workless-cost-2bn-benefits.html#ixzz2b55WbjkU
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