A Unique Location

 by Alex Wilkinson

Lately there seems to have been a fixation with Blackpool in the media showing  high points and low points of the seaside resort. Blackpool as a town is a very odd place but, in these modern times, it seems to have lost a lot of what made it unique. Blackpool is a town trying to attach itself to anything it can to keep hold of what it once had. It’s a town in crisis and, as it tries to attract more and more new tourists, it is in danger of losing control of what it had.

Blackpool has not always been like this. It became a prominent destination back in the 1840s when the (then) village got its first railway. For the first time in history it connected the seaside resort with the industrialised north, providing a gateway of escape for the busy city workers of the major northern cities. The railway brought about major changes in Blackpool and over the following hundred years this small village boomed into one of the most desirable tourist destinations in the north of England.

A lot of Blackpool’s development has been on the back of the booming tourist industry which has allowed the town to develop from, essentially a few houses by the sea, into a bustling concrete jungle. The late 20th century however did impact upon Blackpool as technology superseded the railways and opened up new possibilities for Brits to travel abroad in a cheap and convenient manner.

It’s no surprise to anyone who has ever visited Britain but we generally don’t get the best of the weather here. Most of the year it will be raining and blowing a gale, only to lead into a week long summer before an even more turbulent time. If you want the sun you do not want to spend time in the UK. It’s quite obvious Blackpool cannot compete with Europe or the rest of the world for climate. But this is not to say it cannot compete at all.

Although the weather is indeed a factor, Blackpool like a great deal of the UK has a wealth of history and is brimmed full of relics from days gone by. Blackpool has many tourist hotspots including the piers, Blackpool Tower, Pleasure Beach, Winter Gardens, Grand Theatre, just to name the most prominent. Many of Blackpool's prestigious venues seem to be largely underutilized, with Blackpool Tower only recently getting renovated in a major more modern manner. The piers are nothing more than ageing relics of the town's past now dilapidated and under used. The Winter Gardens is yet another example of a prime venue used sparingly when, in fact, this should be one of the crowning jewels of Blackpool.

Blackpool needs to start looking past its dated image of being a seaside resort and start to embrace change. The town has a lot of prime real estate and a great deal of history. Blackpool needs to become a town attracting a new audience for any weather and not be content selling itself short as just a place to get wasted on a weekend.

It is of course nice to imagine long hot summer that will drive tourism up in Blackpool. However, in reality, this is a rarity and we need to start focusing more on venues under a covered roof that reflect what people want in the 21st century.