At last, recognition that small towns have very different situations from cities, especially for young people. The new Centre for Towns sounds very interesting.
Many of Britain’s towns are shrinking; big-city Britain is largely thriving. Taking south Wales as an example of these divisions, Ian Warren explains why his new Centre for Towns will advocate for the future of our towns, particularly during a period when both major parties in the UK parliament appear committed to city regions.
Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 
December 6, 2017 at 5:41 pm
It’s not just ‘Towns’ in general…each place has different historical reasons for it’s existence. look at the social decay of the now redundant coal mining areas. Because their historical purpose for existing as a community was destroyed by Thatcher. I often questioned what Seatons historical purpose was. An ex-fishing town surrounded by a farming community and the wealthy land owning elite in their big estates dotted around. No unique selling point or anything of real interest. But I saw the social decay there too. (You have the photos Martin. They are on trip advisor now too)
Demographic changes will always occur…usually for economic reasons…look at the industrial revolution…as an example where, as farms mechanised, many poor and illiterate rural workers moved in to the towns to work in mills or on the new canal systems.
At the end of the day wherever people are living they need purpose and work…..we are living Thatchers legacy of generations of unemployment and decades of coerced idleness for thousands of the poorest people in the UK. We have become a nation of service industries….Seaton like many other towns could not survive without serving tourists, but the jobs are no good and offer very little to the workers.
We need people with real vision to change what has happened and put purpose back in to towns in coastal and rural areas. Large farming co-operatives where the towns unemployed could have purpose and both visitors and the towns poor could benefit from fresh produce like veg, eggs, chicken, rabbit, venison, squirrel. (many so called ‘pest species’ can be raised easily to produce good quality lean meat). Projects like this can be set up on unused farmland where the farmer hasn’t worked for decades because he just sits back and gets a European subsidy now while his fields lay empty
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/centre-for-towns-launched-with-new-study-showing-youngsters-moving-to-big-cities-lisa-nandy-stop-patronising-voters_uk_5a131b69e4b0aa32975cc79c
LikeLike