The Last Resort

The government has announced today that it is providing financial support to help regenerate England's "Coastal Towns". Interesting that, of all the things about coastal towns that have gone out of fashion, one of them seems to be the word resort.

On the Today programme, they interviewed a man who runs a B&B in Skegness. He seemed bewildered that, even with the current vogue for stay-cations, the market had fallen for serviced accommodation (B&B clearly being another term out of fashion).

I tried to imagine a situation where a weekend to a B&B in Skeggy would reach the top of my list of mini-breaks. Sure I can imagine breezy, bracing walks (the sand will still be great, regardless) and maybe you can still get good fish and chips. But I think in the final analysis it would be a funky modern aparment (like the ones I saw being built at Westward Ho! last year) or a groovy boutique hotel (like the one Jamie O has opened in Ilfracombe) that would lure me. If I wanted a totally retro experience, I think I'd camp. Bed and breakfast, with candlewick bedspreads, and someone shuffling outside the bathroom, rattling the doorhandle when you're on the loo, that just doesn't feature on my list of holiday possibilities.

I'm not sure how this funding will be spent: they talked about £5 million per town. Marketing is the answer, said the man from Skegness, whilst admitting that self-catering had actually grown in the town last year - I suspected that the resort itself maybe isn't the issue so much as a failure to admit that serviced accommodation has reached the end of its appeal and boutique or minimalist or retro might be concepts worth exploring.

I can imagine, actually, a B&B reinventing itself as a retro-boutique. I'm thinking ice cream vans, Cath Kidston, diners with chrome stools, pastel colours. I'm not thinking brown gloss woodwork and the smell of cabbage permeating the swirly carpets and nylon sheets that snag on your nails and a cold greasy egg on a chipped plate.

The radio piece alluded euphemistically to the fact that some coastal towns have some problems to do with an unbalanced population, healthcare and supported living issues. Seems that old people are out of fashion too.

I spent the first nine years of my life in Margate, another ten to and fro to the bracing resorts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, and the last fifteen years driving endlessly to Teignmouth to see the in-laws. The crumbling stucco of the villas, the faded grandeur, you could see they would spruce up nicely. I live in a place like that myself - far from the sea but once similarly shabby and faded, now all bright and clean and smart again. The raw ingredients are there: clean sand, fresh air, wide avenues, generously proportioned buildings. But £5 million per town won't even touch the sides.