The advent of cheap flights made holidays within Europe affordable to most people. As a consequence, traditional UK holiday destinations became much less popular. Over time old-fashioned guest houses, B&Bs and cheap hotels transitioned into very low cost housing for people with 'problems'. The inevitable doom spiral began...

Destinations on the South Coast were not affected in the same way though and have remained a popular choice with more affluent clientele.

The South Coast towns got pretty badly run down in the 80s and 90s but mostly it recovered or is recovering.

Brighton reinvented itself as a party town and creative hub thanks to Norman Cook and its large student and gay scenes and its fast links to London.

Worthing and Eastbourne became popular spots to raise a family for London telecommuters (two days a week in a London office is viable from there, and property is a fraction of the price).

Margate and Folkestone became artistic hubs, after the last of ex industrial inner London got redeveloped.

Whitstable became a foodie mecca and well-heeled daytripper spot, Borough-Market-on-sea or so.

The Suffolk and North Norfolk coastal towns do a nice line in second homes for the Range Rover and XC90 set.

Many, if not most of these places were pretty desolate in the 90s. Others are still to turn the corner. Hastings is on the way up but still a lot of junkies and the generally down-on-their-luck in temporary B&B accommodation. Herne Bay is still rough as. Lots of South Essex coastal towns are grim and deprived, maybe not as bad as Blackpool but definitely struggling.

> Brighton reinvented itself as a party town

Rediscovered, maybe. It has long been a party town, from the Pavilion - a faux-Indian palace put up by a Prince Regent in a previous century for seaside parties - Quadrophenia-era nightclubs to being the gay capital of England all before Fat Boy Slim was born.

It’s also the south coast town closest to London, with a direct railway line. Huge geographical-economic advantage over Blackpool.

It was a wonderful place to be a student in the ‘90s.

> Destinations on the South Coast were not affected in the same way

Bournemouth (middle of the South Coast) took a slightly different path and some of the accommodation was repurposed to house students from Europe studying English. IIRC the contiguous strip comprising Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch is one of the largest non-industrial conurbations in Europe. I moved to Bournemouth in 1988 for work reasons and it always seemed to me like a large studenty-town that happened to be near the Sea rather than a 'seaside town' (i.e. one that is structured around the beach and bucket-and-spade shops). It's also viewed as Brighton's straight cousin. Christchurch, on the other hand, is known locally as 'the last resort' because of the large proportion of retirees in the population.

I also can't resist the old joke that Cleethorpes isn't twinned with any other town but is in a suicide pact with Grimsby.

'Christchurch, on the other hand, is known locally as 'the last resort' because of the large proportion of retirees in the population.'

I must be getting old since Barton on Sea is becoming more attractive as residential destination by the day...

Milford-on-Sea has entered the chat :-)

Isn’t a large factor the cheap vacations to Spain and the like sucking away a lot of the tourists? Some areas will still stay afloat, but the ‘tide has gone out’, as it were.

Why play on the cold, stone covered beaches on the few days of sun a year when you can fly for a couple hundred UKP to Spain and have reliable sunshine, warm weather, and sand.

Over here in Ireland the cost of staying in a B&B or “cheap” hotel is eye watering, to the point it is often cheaper to fly somewhere sunny for a longer stay.

It's 15 years since I last stayed in Ireland and even then it was crazy expensive.

I don't think it's accurate to say that all coastal towns in the UK are doing badly - I can't help noticing there here on the east of Scotland you have on different sides of the Firth of Forth Methil, which is deprived, and North Berwick which is doing very nicely.

Different histories, reliance on different industries, quality of transport links make a huge difference.

Not even all coastal "tourist" towns are doing badly - I live near Burntisland in Fife which actually seems to be thriving, probably because of the excellent location for commuting by train into Edinburgh, combined with nice beaches, great views (of Edinburgh!)...

It seems to be true that they are either doing very well or very badly.

St Andrews? Elie? Lovely. Methil? Granton? Pass.

Are there examples of “it’s alright” seaside towns above some threshold size?

Eastbourne? Better end of alright, but some way short of lovely.

Hastings kind of the other end of things. A fair few problems but not hopeless/desperate.

Main difference between them being Eastbourne's proximity to other prosperous places and slightly better road/rail connection to London.

I was about to argue that I didn't think Granton was that deprived - particularly given all of the new development in that area - but I checked on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivations map and it does look pretty bad in places:

https://simd.scot/#/simd2020/BTTTFTT/14/-3.2287/55.9786/

Cheap flights and cheap - and reliably warm - holidays in Spain ruined the British seaside town, which were largely reliant on tourism once fishing was taken out of the equation (assuming fishing was in it at all originally).

Anyone living there with any skills or potential have to leave to get good jobs elsewhere. Typical brain drain and related decline.

In modern time, coastal areas prosper when they have a desirable climate (moderate temperatures buffered by water) or concentrate commerce (shipping port, especially deep water).

A bunch of the coastal towns in the UK offer neither. They have a legacy of things like small fishing operations, which was significantly more valuable in the past when food was more scarce and fisheries were healthier.

Yeah, you see a similar phenomenon in the northeastern US. Places like New Bedford and Lowell, Massachusetts were doing much better when whaling and textiles were in their golden years. Now, not so much.

As others have said I’m not sure it’s right to say that all of the British coast is run down but there are a few common modes of failed places on the coast.

Fishing ports which now have few fishers left. Long term decline due to overfishing along with Brexit making it hard for them to sell their catch to markets in EU. Grimsby.

The Victorian seaside mass resorts that lost out to cheap foreign holidays. Blackpool.

Places like Cornwall which are full of second homes and outwardly look very nice but mask deep poverty as there is little affordable housing and few food jobs.

Also the definition of coastal is different in the UK, an island with nowhere more than 70 miles from the sea. Washington DC is 85 miles from the Atlantic but still populated by the ‘coastal elite’.

> Washington DC is 85 miles from the Atlantic but still populated by the ‘coastal elite’.

Washington is 31 road miles from Annapolis, which is on the coast of Chesapeake Bay; straight line distance to the coast is shorter.

D.C. is also directly on the shore of the Potomac River where it becomes a tidal estuary.

(By the way, the UK is not an island. For example, you've omitted Northern Ireland.)

> (By the way, the UK is not an island. For example, you've omitted Northern Ireland.)

There is a very, very deep rabbit hole here. Because it's late and I have to be up early in the morning, I'll merely point out the entrance [0] and quietly back away...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming

That is highly pedantic but yes, I should have used Great Britain. Though in fairness even our government frequently forgets that Northern Ireland exists.

Despite "British fish for British fishermen" being a significant factor both in the coastal towns themselves and lots of other places where people voted for Brexit.

I know we're not supposed to call Brexit voters thick, but it's difficult sometimes...

As to failure modes, the decline in small and midsize ports generally in favour of huge container ports, Felixstowe etc., also the offshoring of processing either to factory ships (conveniently located beyond the reach of employment law) or distant countries. Quite a few South and East coast places used to have passenger ferry services to Europe and no longer do - Ramsgate, Hull, Great Yarmouth, Folkestone spring to mind but I'm sure there were more.