A group Chaired by Polly representing Labour-held coastal constituencies will hold a major event at Labour Party Conference on Sunday calling on the Prime Minister to take stronger action to reverse the decline of left-behind seaside towns.
At the event, Polly, who chairs the Coastal Parliamentary Labour Party (Coastal PLP), will tell the Prime Minister that a “London Challenge” for the coast is needed to turn around the fortunes of seaside communities and deliver Labour a majority at the next general election. The London Challenge was a New Labour school improvement programme that transformed the educational outcomes of young people in London, delivering lasting changes to whole communities across the capital.
Polly said that young people in deprived season towns like the ones she represented in East Thanet needed major government investment in post-16 training, apprenticeships, and the delivery of good, secure non-graduate jobs.
She said the potential of coastal areas had long been squandered through Conservative-era cuts and a lack of government ambition, but that there were vast untapped economic opportunities in coastal areas that were currently being wasted.
Speaking ahead of the event, Polly said:
East Thanet may sit in affluent Kent, but it’s towns have far more in common with Blackpool, Scarborough, or Rhyl than they do with leafy Sevenoaks or Tunbridge Wells.
Sitting as they do at the extremities of our country, coastal communities face unique challenges: dire transport links, seasonal tourist economies, and travel-to-work areas that are, by definition, half the size of those inland.
Yet they also hold enormous untapped potential – spectacular natural landscapes, world-class clean energy opportunities, and under-served job markets full of ambitious young people waiting for better opportunities to come along.
It seems hard to believe now, but in the 1990s people wrote off London as a lost cause, with underperforming schools and serious problems with crime. But the last Labour government ignored the doomsters and launched the London Challenge, which transformed the lives of London’s youngsters and delivered lasting change to communities across our capital.
I know the legacy of this Labour government can be a transformative agenda no less ambitious for our coastal communities than the London Challenge was for London. With grit, determination, and vision, this government can and should deliver a decade of renewal and opportunity for our coastal towns.