Why coastal regeneration requires a new narrative

The UK’s sense of belonging is bound up with the coast. When we call to mind white cliffs and salt marshes, seafront hotels and pier arcades, we are accessing a deep part of our cultural imagination. Coastal towns are woven into our national story.

Yet their present reality is more complex – and the gap between image and experience is widening. Across the country, coastal communities face overlapping structural challenges.

When Willmott Dixon’s development business, alongside joint venture partner Milligan, convened a regeneration roundtable in Dover, participants highlighted a legacy of disinvestment, constrained transport links and town centres shaped by highly seasonal economies.

Some people living in coastal areas can feel disconnected from the opportunities offered in the wider world, which can put a ceiling on their aspirations. Many areas on the coast have been categorised as “social mobility cold spots” – places from which it can be difficult to get ahead in life.

This can feel like a restraint on younger generations’ futures. A 2017 report by the Social Mobility Commission found that 10% of disadvantaged youngsters in Eastbourne make it to university, for example, compared with 50% of the equivalent group in Kensington and Chelsea.

Employment figures tell a similar story. In the mid-2010s, around 71% of those aged 16 to 64 were in employment in non-coastal built-up areas, compared with lower rates in many coastal towns. In some places the gap was stark – for example, in Aberystwyth the rate was just under 46%.

Seasonality compounded the issue, with around 45% of jobs in smaller coastal towns being part-time, compared with about 35% in non-coastal areas. Infrastructure also lagged, with fewer coastal premises able to access gigabit-capable broadband.

As these difficulties overlap, there is the risk, as the 2019 House of Lords report puts it, of being “mesmerised by complexity”. Those of us working in development and regeneration must translate that complexity into deliverable regeneration programmes.

Securing a long-term commitment to a regeneration project requires the buy-in of government, private investors and local communities. To unite these stakeholders, coastal regeneration will need a clear and coherent story

We should combine public ambition with private capital, helping to create coastal communities that feel connected to possibility – with residents whose horizons are no longer limited by their postcode.

It is possible to turn the tide, but doing so will require serious investment and co-ordination – and, perhaps first of all, a change of outlook. As was expressed at our Dover roundtable, securing a long-term commitment to a regeneration project requires the buy-in of government, private investors and local communities. To unite these stakeholders, coastal regeneration will need a clear and coherent story.

For too long, the narrative of coastal regeneration has been fragmented. In traditional regeneration, coastal places were often treated as nostalgic national ornaments.

Our seaside towns have at times been treated like individual piers, pointing out into the ocean but disconnected from a wider ecosystem. The funding interventions they received have often been self-contained, rather than positioning coastal towns as integral to the broader economy. Stakeholders were frequently misaligned, and learning was sometimes not shared.

The future cannot remain the same. As we look ahead, we might begin to see coastal towns less as isolated landmarks and more as harbours – connected systems that are active and purposeful throughout the year.

Harbours are dynamic and resilient, shaped by collaboration and exchange. They are centres of movement, a crucial part of economic life.

We should apply this systemic thinking to town-centre regeneration, moving beyond isolated single-use schemes or strategies driven solely by retail. Instead, the focus should be on programmatic development: bringing forward portfolios of linked sites rather than one-off projects, signalling the scale of ambition that spurs investor confidence and builds resilience in the long term.

In Dover, Torbay, Weymouth and Great Yarmouth, transformational town-centre regeneration is now under way. Working with local authorities, Willmott Dixon’s development team (alongside its JV partner Milligan) is acting as a co-ordinating partner – bringing together land, funding and long-term stewardship to structure regeneration frameworks that treat sites as part of a wider whole, rather than in isolation.

The objective is not simply to deliver standalone buildings, but to unlock a sequence of projects that reinforce one another over time.

In each case, the focus is on mixed-use environments that diversify the local economy across the entire year. At Great Yarmouth’s North Quays, for example, the work will blend leisure, retail, residential and the public realm – all designed to complement and preserve the town’s rich heritage, and restore it to the place Charles Dickens celebrated in David Copperfield as the “finest place in the universe”.

The government’s Mission Coastal initiative, announced in its Every Child Achieving and Thriving schools’ white paper and modelled on the London Challenge that transformed outcomes across the capital, represents the most significant policy commitment to coastal communities in over a decade. It recognises what those of us working in these places already know: that education, community infrastructure and economic renewal are inseparable. The local partnership boards it will establish, bringing together schools, councils and community leaders, mirror the collaborative approach our own coastal roundtables are pursuing.

Regeneration cannot be delivered through isolated interventions or short-term funding cycles. It requires the creation of durable institutions, aligned stakeholders and credible delivery partners

Alongside Mission Coastal, the white paper commits billions in capital for SEND provision, community sport facilities and family hubs that will disproportionately benefit coastal areas, investment that, if coordinated with regeneration programmes, will become far more than the sum of its parts.

In education as in development, sustained partnerships matter. Regeneration cannot be delivered through isolated interventions or short-term funding cycles. It requires the creation of durable institutions, aligned stakeholders and credible delivery partners.

The ongoing series of coastal roundtables led by Willmott Dixon and Milligan is one contribution to that process. In Dover, speakers emphasised the importance of shared identity and the need to speak with a collective coastal voice when engaging investors and central government. Our upcoming roundtables will take that further, exploring how regeneration programmes can be designed to capture the education and community infrastructure investment that Mission Coastal will bring.

If we shift our thinking from the image of the pier to that of the harbour, we begin to see regeneration not as a series of one-off gestures, but as a connected, year-round economic endeavour. Harbours thrive because they are adaptive, interconnected and economically essential. They also support the lives and ambitions of the people around them, creating environments where communities – younger generations included – can feel connected to the wider world rather than constrained by circumstance.

With programmatic development and enduring public-private partnerships, our coastal towns can do the same. They have always been a treasured part of our national story; now they must help to write the next chapter.

David Atkinson is director of development and investment at Willmott Dixon’s development business