At 1:00 PM, Anonymous said...
Which way should Swanage go? This question appears on Swanageview from time to time. Here is a little addition.I was in Essex recently and visited Clacton-on-Sea and Frinton-on-Sea to see what they are like. They are close together geographically but very different. Which would you like Swanage to be like? Clacton has two theatres, numerous amusement arcades and other places of entertainment. It is also very run down and seedy and has a general air of poverty. There are boarded up windows in commercial premises on the seafront and a lot of run down buildings generally. By contrast Frinton allows no commercial development on the sea front. There are no arcades. It has only one pub and the council is resisting an application to open its first takeaway food outlet. Entertainment appears to be limited to a quiet evening in the war memorial club's members bar. However, it looks very prosperous compared to its neighbour. There are no empty shops in the high street and no sign of tourist tourist tat either. The place looks wealthy. The general impression I formed was that a town with lots of tourism facilies that should be "vibrant" is dead on its feet but one where the height of excitement is a mug of ovaltine is doing OK. My conclusion was that the less a town does to entertain its visitors the more money the town as a whole makes. Can the "modernising" tendency explain this.
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Presumably if you don't like it you can move to Frinton, leaving me in Clacton thanks.
The choice of photo is very apt. The atmosphere of Frinton is very much as one imagines Warmington on Sea. Indeed, a lot of location shooting for Dads Army was done out in Essex. A little more research has revealed that there is some entertainment in Frinton in the form of a summer repertory theatre. I have not been able to discover what they have on though. To underline the difference Clacton had posters for its theatres advertising an accordianist, a ventriloquist and an Abba tribute band. According to Wikipedia they also have the last summer show in the country. I imagine theatre in Frinton is a rather more serious affair. I am sorry if I gave the impression Clacton was a place with cutting edge popular entertainment. Its just as old fashioned but in a different way.
The points I was trying to make is that setting out to attract a large down market clientele in Clacton has not produced a prosperous town. On the other hand Frinton's approach of being very restrictive seems to have worked rather well. Its not about which I would rather live in but about comparing two development strategies.
Oh er.
"Frinton's approach of being very restrictive seems to have worked rather well."
Oh er.
Roll on the police state.
There was a town, possibly Oxford, which had a wall across a road, so that the poor people couldn't touch the rich peoples lives.
We used to have Grammar and Seconsary Schools, same effect,
We used to have serfs and peasants, and the upper class.
Yours a failed member of the upper class.
The exact opposite: Swanage was a down market prosperous Town. Now it is not. So modernisation would make it an up market prosperous Town.
Could you spell out what you mean by modernisation and how it would help. Strange that the whole UK pitch to the US tourist market is based on the opposite of modernity and brings in billions. Can you cite any market research to support the proposition?
Frinton was set up as a resort by a developer in the nineteenth century very much as Swanage was by George Burt. He donated significant sea front areas to the town on condition that they were not used for commercial development. Clacton followed a policy of letting investors do pretty much what they liked to fleece the visitors. Free marketeer's ideology would lead you to expect this would have the more successful outcome but the reality is the exact opposite.
Sadly there's really little left of what could be regarding as charming in Swanage. Too many Victorian houses and hotels have been torn down to make way for the usual litter of fairly anonymous blocks of apartments. Walk through town in the summer and you can smell candyfloss and vinegar and skid on discarded chips. It's really a very tacky place and the local authorities have a lot to answer for in allowing it to become this way. It will, however, continue to attract people to the area because it's near enough to relatively unspoiled landscapes.
Good point, and it's rare that I stand up for the councils, but remember Doreset is one of the worse funded Councils in the country.
When I worked for them they seemed to spend their time ensuring that the staff they had were gainfully employed.
As they're one of Dorsets largest employers, mebbie that was not such a bad idea. The alternative was to take huge risks and 'speculate' with their funding to try and raise more.
If they'd been successful we'd be praising them, if they'd failed we'd be cursing them.
This is Dorset, we're not a risk taking community.
We still have Grammar and Middle schools - very expensive, but even more expensive - short term - to close.
Sorry I've just lost my thread.
I was going on to make lots of points why Dorset is 'safe'.
The conclusion was going to be that with the olympics coming and loads of money heading our way, isn't it time Dorset got radical.
Dorset - radical - that'd be nice.
I thought it was only individuals who had identity crisis - with Swanage it appears to be more of a community thing!
In terms of your comparison with Clacton/Frinton, what you need to realise is that Frinton is an old fashioned village that is probably 75% populated by retired people. It happens to be located on the coast but does not attempt to attract tourists to sustain its existence. Clacton is more of a typical seaside town (with more than its fair share of tacky stuff - certainly more than Swanage)like many in England but with a close-ish proximity to London and the port of Harwich is has quite a lot of non-tourist related commerce and industry.
(Forgive me if I am wrong, being a non-local) but the commerce and vitality of Swanage relies heavily on its visitors bringing money and life to the town.
From this and previous chains there appear to be the camp who want art galleries and posh people and those who are happy to see the proletariat who buy chips and put cash in local shops and slot machines.
As a regular visitor I put my self in both camps - I am a succesful professional and enjoy looking in (and buying from) the art galleries and also walk and cycle along the Jurassic Coast. Equally I sit on the beach with my kids and take them to the slots and chip shops. Every one's a winner! You need to use all your assets to get people to come and spend their money in all sorts of ways.
I agree with the last paragraph, but, Swanage on the whole caters to those less able to spend serious money.
We need to appeal more to those with large cheque books.
That doesn't mean that we have to exclude others, we just need balance.
Those in Swanage who have spending money need to be enticed to spend in town etc.
Frinton has tourists. It is not just residential. There is a danger of defining a seaside resort as a place with tourist tat, like arcades and chippies and thinking that somewhere without the rubbish has no tourists. It has enough tourists to support a summer rep theatre which is more than we do.
I have not found figures for the age structure except for the district as a whole which shows it is pretty similar to Purbeck and probably exactly what Purbeck will be in a few years time. Clacton has lots of retirement and nursing homes, its certainly no younger than Frinton.
As I tried to emphasise in the original posting what struck me was that Clacton, which aims at a downmarket audience, shows every sign of decline, but Frinton which has avoided going for this market sector is prosperous.
The conclusion I drew from comparing two adjacent towns which market themselves at different ends of the income spectrum was that if Swanage wishes to enjoy a measure of prosperity selling itself to the better off is going to be the best use of a limited marketing budget. Being a prosperous downmarket town is no longer an option.
Yeah, sort of.
As I said earlier - balance.
How can we attract the well off?
What do we have to offer them?
We already attract the trippers, what can we do to attract others?
ive said all along you need to attract all visitors, sometimes those with most money dont bloody part with it, and complain and moan more than others, in todays PC type of society surely its offensive to allienate one particular class?
How true. That was the first post to use the word class. All the tat round the town alienates exactly the class of people we need to attract.
The PDC planning document discussed in another tread says that Swanage needs better hotels and to attract people with more disposable income. Can someone explain how this would alienate a "class" of visitors. Are they saying there really are people who would not come here if there were more good hotels and restaurants and something other then tacky gifts in some of the shops? That is an extraordinary proposition. There are people who will stop coming here if there is more choice.
ive allways said you should cater for all in swanage, nice hotels returants etc etc, tidy it up and all will come, after all theres what 25% holiday homes they are not actually owned by your average chav couple who have 5 kids are they? by the same token as I have said if i had an income of 250 k per yr i would not holiday in swanage, and that nowt to with the tat its to do with the location and weather.
"sometimes those with most money dont bloody part with it, and complain and moan more than others"
A splendid bit of inverted snobbery. Fancy people with money expecting high standards and complaining when they are offered rubbish. What its saying is forget about improving standards, lets play safe and stick with low income, low expectation types who will eat any old rubbish, buy any old tat and never complain. What a future!
Good old safe Swanage. We'll take no risks here.
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