Can I interest you in a short break in a seaside hotel for £10 a night, including a full English? It’s in Blackpool: a resort covered in this section just three times in the past decade, compared with 30-plus for Salcombe and 25 for Southwold in the past three years alone.
Yet with 18.8 million visitors contributing £1.4 billion to the local economy in 2021, Blackpool is the nation’s biggest seaside resort. It dwarfs Brighton, Bournemouth, Scarborough and St Ives and gets a fraction of the coverage. It’s partly Blackpool’s own fault and partly caused by external factors — sunnier alternatives, for example — but that’s about to change.
In 1911, the town’s Central Station was the busiest in the world, and in July 1936, 650 trains came and went in a single day. Blackpool was Britain’s glittering Vegas-on-Sea — and then cheap flights lured us away.
Blackpool’s last peak was August bank holiday in 1981, when visitors rented all 28,000 deckchairs in town. Thereafter, the resort led the decline of the British seaside, reaching the bottom of the trough in 2014, when the council offloaded the last 6,000 deck chairs, admitting that no-one had rented one since 2011.
Since then, Blackpool has been as much about levelling up as living it up. And despite being home to the best theme park Britain (virtual reality has nothing on the twin-track terror of the Pleasure Beach’s 88-year-old Grand National coaster); the nation’s biggest indoor waterpark; an entertainment scene that ranges this year from the Ukrainian Opera & Ballet Theatre to the British Elvis Tribute Artist Championships, the sad fact remains that the biggest Blackpool headline for many of us has been its decline.
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This week things look rather different — Sykes Cottages published the results of a poll naming the place as the nation’s best-value holiday destination. How the times have changed.
A report published last week by the Institute for Fiscal Studies makes it painfully clear that we’re all going to feel poorer this year. Increased interest rates will reduce incomes after mortgage payments by between 7.5 and 10 per cent. Average annual energy bills will be higher by £1,083, or 88 per cent, than in 2021–22. Median net-of-tax earnings will be 2.5 per cent lower in April 2023 than in April 2022.
According to the travel trade, none of the above is affecting overseas holiday bookings, but it’s a different picture for domestic getaways. A PwC study predicts that the recovery of hotels in the regions will flatline this year as we cut back on short breaks — especially the expensive ones.
So what about that £10-a-night deal? It sounds too good to be true, but Glasgow-based Blackpool Promotions confirmed that I could book four nights’ B&B in the Royal Boston or Royal Seabank hotels for the advertised price plus £10pp for insurance.
While highly rated on TripAdvisor, neither of these are the bijoux boutique design hotels you may be used to, and the sophistication for which Blackpool was once famous — the Grundy Art Gallery, the Matcham-designed Grand Theatre, and two magnificent ballrooms — has long been overshadowed by a culture of low-brow excess.
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But many of the town’s 1,500 hotels, B&Bs, guesthouses and apartments have tired of the binge-drinking and now refuse bookings from stags, hens and large groups of friends. Two of the best for couples are the Fossil Tree on the Queen’s Promenade with B&B doubles from £99 (fossiltree.co.uk); and the LGBTQ-friendly Lawrence House — famous for its roof terrace — with B&B doubles from £85 (lawrencehouseblackpool.co.uk). For families, the Big Blue has a private entrance to the Pleasure Beach and B&B family rooms from £125 per night (bigbluehotel.com).
“We have six miles of beaches and the most wonderful sunsets imaginable,” said the council leader Lynn Williams. “Add to that a programme of world-class events such as the Blackpool Air Show Weekend, World Fireworks Championship, the award-winning Lightpool Festival and our Christmas by the Sea festival, and our visitors have a choice of free, high-quality entertainment throughout the year.”
Last week Merlin Entertainment opened the £2.3 million The Gruffalo and Friends Clubhouse. Later this year the new tramway extension will link Blackpool North station to the Golden Mile, and by 2026 the £300 million Blackpool Central regeneration project — turning the old railway station into a hotel and entertainment complex — is expected to bring in 600,000 additional visitors per year. Also in 2026, the Eden Project Morecambe is scheduled to open up the Fylde coast.
We’ve been hearing about the renaissance of the British seaside for the past two decades, but there’s an urgency now inspired not by nostalgia but an eye for a profit. Scientists predict that by 2030, large areas of the Med will be too hot and too dry in summer to remain viable for summer holidays. As climate change pushes tourism north, it makes sense for resorts such as Blackpool, Morecambe, Skegness and Great Yarmouth to invest now to be ready to welcome back those who once forsook them.
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In the meantime, those of us who can no longer afford seaside breaks in Biarritz, Barcelona or Brindisi have a chance to grab a bargain break in Blackpool — where battered haddock and chips at Bentley’s on Bond Street costs £3.90.
● Will you be visiting the British seaside this year? Share your thoughts in the comments below or write to us at travel@sunday-times.co.uk
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