Left behind - the view from the bar

This is a brief essay in response to Sarah O'Connor's article in The Financial Times Weekend Magazine published on Saturday 16 November 2017 (O’Connor & Burn-Murdoch, 2017), the conversation it triggered locally and nationally. It is also a response to the meeting held by LeftCoast, ‘Left Behind – Blackpool a Drop Out Town?’  on 18 January 2018 and the mini-manifesto produced by LeftCoast, which will form the foundation for, Left Behind... #2 - Creative Conversation on the 8 February 2018.

The article prompted a renewed personal interest in the decline and fall of Blackpool. I arrived on the Fylde Coast in 1971. Blackpool was in full swing but the chains were well rusted through and it was clear from the public debate and the newspaper headlines that the infrastructure and superstructure was starting to crumble. Family holidays were in decline but weekends, particularly during the “Lights”, were more popular than ever, if the number of cars queuing to get into Blackpool on a Friday evening was anything to go by, and this was pre M55.

Sarah O'Connor's article laid bare the problems of economic decline, low wage economy, social deprivation and the evidence of conflicting government legislation, re benefits, and muddled thinking by local and regional politics. Digging in the archives revealed a library of dust covered reports of one sort or other going back to 2003 and probably further if I could have raised the enthusiasm to look. These were reports that identified all the problems and offered a range of miracle solutions to halt Blackpool’s economic decline and cure the resultant social deprivation. Then there were the government reports offering analysis, solutions and in some cases olive branches and the occasional wad of money to reinvent, save and invigorate coastal or seaside towns and liberate them of their post-industrial ills. Inevitably to add cream to the mouldering pile there are the academic papers and reports that say all the same things but in a language that no one understands.

Left behind: can anyone save the towns the economy forgot? - Financial Times Weekend Magazine

The Financial Times Weekend Magazine published on Saturday 16 November 2017 - link

On The Edge: A Response

This is a response to Sarah O'Connor's article in The Financial Times Weekend Magazine published on Saturday 16 November 2017, On the edge: Inside the town that the British economy forgot (O’Connor & Burn-Murdoch, 2017) Sara's dystopic view of Blackpool, generated an online response which one suspects surprised even the writer. Many of the comments acclaimed the quality of the article. However, a number bemoaned the absence, even as a footnote, of any reference to the positive developments and investment that are taking place in the town.

O’Connor reports on why national policy has failed and asks, what are locals doing to turn things around? It is not clear from the report why national policy has failed, surprising, given the apparent thoroughness of the research. I would suggest that the answer to her question is, the locals have done a great deal, as she would have discovered if her research had been completed, the information is in the public domain.

There is further comment in later blog posts...