Weymouth, Dorset: Article Feedback and Comments (Local Councils and Tourist Offices Take Note!); New Proposals

Update: it seems that people have taken note, and are coming up with new proposals.

I've just read through all the 354 comments and feedback on Tracy McVeigh's controversial article in The Observer.

I've made a partial selection (and edited out all the source information, for ease of reading), as follows:

*Her characterization of Dorset is extremely one-sided and tinged with spite: it completely ignores the fascinating history and beautiful landscapes. It also ignores the fact that there are very good universities and interesting cultural centres all around the south west. But of course, young people aren't interested in things like that, are they? They just want to design apps in a crowded, polluted metropolis where accommodation costs half their wages. The issue of housing is right, though: like all pretty parts of Britain, property prices are inflated due to wealthy Londoners buying second homes, so locals can't afford to live in the town where they work. Second homes should be taxed so highly that the government can use the funds to build good quality, attractive housing for local people.

*I live in Weymouth and a lot of the negative comments are true. It is, on the popular side, a cultural desert, but so is most of the country. There's actually a lot going on here, much organised and run by locals. But it's not a 1950's drug ridden enclave, as grim as a northern post-industrial blot on the landscape. There are far more positives than negatives and it's a pity this writer couldn't be bothered to look for them

*This analysis could apply to many seaside towns, although the geographical isolation of Weymouth is up there with the worst.

*You know a town's in trouble when there's a Cash Convertors on the prom.

*No surprise to me. I grew up on the Isle of Wight a seasonal trap for the unambitious.

*It's not really news. Education professionals have been trying to highlight this problem for years. Some of the Kent coastal secondary moderns had a dreadful reputation a few years back. A fair number of coastal resorts seem to have pretty limited visions for themselves and for the visitors. There are a lot of places that don't seem to want to do much more than sell you a "kiss me quick" hat, ice cream, and some fish and chips then get you to put the rest of your money in the slot machines.
Sadly there are too many towns both coastal and inland bypassed by the wider economy.

*No caring, intelligent parent would live in area that has the 11+ like Kent or Torquay. Social apartheid at 10+ years old as many take at beginning of year 6. Backward and primitive no wonder it can not attract the aspirational classes. Meanwhile Cameron's economic devastation of the lower classes goes on in these seaside towns ( except wealthy Bournemouth)

*It will take a lot to move British holiday resorts away from their period of growth that was a result of greater opportunities for working classes to have holidays and their decline as result of cheap foreign holidays. British holiday resorts are generally a disgrace and require a vision that is includes residents for the whole year and visitors in the summer months. Weymouth could be a lovely place to visit if it wasn't so tatty.

*I always think that whenever I visit a British seaside resort. I have happy childhood memories of Weymouth and fairly recently I visited both Weston Super Mare and Torquay. They could be so lovely but businesses allow the buildings to become weathered or slap tacky looking plastic signs all over Victorian architecture. I guess they think it's what holiday makers there want but by staying in a 1950s time warp they are ignoring a new, possibly, more lucrative revenue stream that might improve the aspirations of the whole area. Step on the main promenade and the towns are so run down and people just seem to have given up. I found it quite upsetting.

*Good luck to Weymouth , I wish it well ! However, it is suffering the same, as many other seaside resorts, up and down Britain, from the same main ailment, lack of people coming in to spend money, because they are 'skint', because of unemployment. Don't worry though ! I see from the article, that Alan Milburn is on the job ! Yes the same Alan Milburn, that tossed in the towel, to spend more time with his family, rather than soldier on, with Tony and his friends. Many folk know the feeling Alan---spending time with the family !! Maybe had the Labour policies been more in touch with the needs of the people, rather than the needs of the Westminster gang, Weymouth would be in a better state, and Tracy McVeigh would be writing about something else.

*British seaside resort towns are, generally, tremendously naff. Great fun as a bit of a freak show though

*Shame she forgot to mention that the same weekend as the Tourism Students putting on their Charity Show, is in fact Weymouth at War weekend. 91% takeup rate of Hotels and Guest Houses. A fantastic celebration of World War II all over the town. Today it is the Remembrance Service and Parade which is always see thousands turn out to take part or watch. 30,000 are expected today. But yes Weymouth does have it's problem's that is without doubt and a lot of what is written is correct. But there is heck of a lot missing as well. http://www.whatsonweymouth.com/

*This is very sad ....
as an occasional tourist I think that some good development to get rid of the betting shops would do wonders. They look so depressing and give the area such an offputting aspect, obviously contribute to the poverty.
More diverse kinds of tourism could be developed - painting holidays, cycling holidays, craft centres. A bit of decent investment and this gorgeous area could be revitalized- however i will say that the train from London is appalling: so filthy.

*The council is stuck somewhere in the 1950s, has no imagination whatsoever.
All that free publicity when the Olympics came there, such a wasted opportunity.

*Well, that's a coincidence! I just got back from a sun blessed week in Weymouth. As a tourist with young kids I enjoyed it immensely, a beautiful spot with a gorgeous wide sweeping bay and kid friendly beach. But that is a definite diversion from the run down nature of the town centre itself. There has been cosmetic improvements on the promenades - swanky coffee shops and the like - but my first impressions of the high street was that it was utterly grim and hinted at something less cheerful behind the facade. There sure is wealth there, big glass fronted houses with glorious sea views - 2nd homes for some ill deserving city banker no doubt. You can see locals employed in the attractions and amusement parks, working anti-social hours while everyone else enjoys themselves. I live near Thanet which has very similar problems. I can't see it changing soon until we get less London centric governments.

*My ex's father has a home on the esplanade. Rents out a shop too. Spends almost the whole year in Cyprus. These problems have been affecting coastal towns for decades. I did a few months work in Weston Super Mare 20 years ago. I was shocked when I realised how bad heroin was then. Seaside towns now are either for 2nd homes or where you go to die.

*Clearly whoever this horrible article as never been to either place, particularly in the summer time when you can barely move for all the people that come to visit the wonderful antiques fair. I was born in Bridport and it was an idyllic place to grow up. My parents have lived there for nearly 40 years and run a very successful, thriving business, based on good old fashioned values and yes everything is computerised, with broadband. I have moved some 35 miles away into a town in Somerset and am desperate to move back. I can't afford to do this because people from London keep coming down and buying the houses for holiday homes pushing up the house prices, spending less than 20% of their time in said house, which means that I can't go home. What this person doesn't seem to realise is they don't care what others think. If you come they will welcome you.The people of Bridport and its businesses are doing very well by staying exactly as they are.

*The people and businesses of Bridport are doing very well by serving a large section of their community which is very well off middle class liberal and arty, but also benefits by not being close to a much bigger town to which people are prepared to travel to shop. There are probably more young people in Bridport than any similar sized town in Dorset. As you've moved to Somerset try taking a look at Yeovil or Minehead, both of which are very similar to Weymouth.

*What they should do is build a massive overpriced art gallery that will attract wealthy hipsters with expensive cameras, who will spend money in coffee shops which will push house prices higher, attracting wealthier stupider people to buy in the area, forcing the local people to go and live somewhere else, thus brightening the place up.

*Its called 'Cultural regeneration', and it is a model that seaside towns like Hastings, Margate the two you mentioned and many others have signed up for. It is a short term plan for social breakdown, and property developers, as ever, are the big winners.

*What a pompous outdated paper full of outdated opinions. I speak to holiday makers who come back to Weymouth year on year old and young. How dare you try and take away the money that comes into the town. We are suppose to be helping our country and using out natural assets to attract. We are a town that today welcomes veterans from everywhere to parade through the town with pride. To stage battle r enactments on the beach and show us what life was like. We welcomed the Olympics which was an absolutely awesome time and we were very honoured. Every town has its rich and poor side. But id rather this life than a life of crime and not being able to walk down the street without worrying someone's going to pull a knife or explode a bomb. Rent increases do not help our town and neither does continuing rising costs. But this town works hard on attracting people and it pulls together in times of need. It doesn't come to a stand still it works its way through things. That's the beauty of Dorset folk we pull together in times of need. Bridport is another part of our awesome Jurassic coast which we are extremely proud of. How about u go back to your sad city life with nothing else to do other than slag off a beautiful part of the country. You're certainly not going to help with your opinion

*I have lived in Weymouth for nine years and there is plenty to see, do and explore here. Having worked in several local schools I agree that a lack of aspiration is a problem that seems to be entrenched amongst a minority of people who live here. (This article certainly won't help that either) On the whole, the majority of young people I have taught and worked with are bright, well adjusted and want to get on in life! I have a young daughter who loves her school and loves to go to the beach and to go for cycle rides in the beautiful countryside. I feel that we are lucky to live in this area and I am happy to be bringing her up here!

*I'm from Weymouth but moved because of lack of jobs, like most of my friends we ended up in London. The town desperately needs to diversify and not just rely on low paid seasonal jobs. The council's budget has been slashed to the bare bones but a recent Labour proposal to double council tax on empty holiday homes to raise much needed funds was defeated by the Tories, why? The town has suffered from years of amateurish leadership who had no ideas on how to promote, diversify and grow but a recent change at the top with people who are progressive and forward thinking certainly bodes well for the future.

*For the record I mentioned schools closing, (and shops and garages and post offices) ok that isn't overblown (the decades describing these closures were inaccurate). I mentioned these developments in relation to second home ownership, the context of which wasn't covered at all in the article so the comment seems a bit daft.
I spoke to the journalist for a long period about the problems with housing mainly, none of which made it into the article.
Also the reference to heroin echoes a previous comment, I can't remember saying this, (I hope I didn't). There are drug and alcohol problems everywhere, so it isn't exactly 'news'. On the other hand, it isn't the image projected by the rural idyll idealists, so it does need to be pointed out that there are serious drug problems in the country. Anyone who doesn't acknowledge this is in some sort of denial.

*Heroin (& amphetamines too) were certainly easily obtainable in Bridport & Dorchester 30 years ago when I was still living & going to school there - no worse than large towns & cities per head of population, but probably no better either. Poverty & drunken violence were nothing unusual either.
I think what comes out of this is that smaller towns, rural & affluent areas find it easier to hide (not necessarily deliberately) their problems than the big industrial places do.
Portsmouth (where I've lived happily for 30 years) & Southampton are often condemned as dumps by those who don't live there (along with most of industrial Britain, although horrible post-war architecture hasn't helped), probably because their problems are more visible than say, Winchester or Salisbury, but you can still find those problems if you look a bit harder. Likewise, povery & prosperity can coexist in the same town, now matter how small.

*"British seaside all washed up."

"Britain may well be 'Europe's loneliness capital..."

"How Britain got so fat."

British people are racists... British people are worthless rubbish, etc.

Thanks Guardian for your scaremongering, negative, knocking headlines. The one about our seasides being washed up is completely misleading and gives the impression upon first reading that our seasides are finished. Of course that is not truly relevant to the story it leads to, but what the hell – it's a sensational headline that our wonderful Tracy was probably pleased with for her bit of page filler.

Keep knocking Britain and its people Guardian...More and more like the Daily Mail every day.

*I live in Weymouth. I'm OK. Comfortable, well-off, great job. I'm sitting now in my lounge. From my window the sea is literally a stone's throw away. But the article is a blisteringly accurate picture of my town. I was born here. Then there was a naval base with support dockyard, a major engineering works, two Admiralty research establishments, a nuclear research facility just up the road, two major army camps. The tourism was a plus. Everyone had jobs. From my year alone at Weymouth Grammar School 15 of us went on to obtain PhDs. Having dotted around various bits of the world, I came back to Weymouth because I love it here. But all that's left is exactly what the article describes. A shell of a town. A desperate ghost of what it was. I was lucky. As things stand, the youngsters here are screwed.

*There's some truth in the assertion, though, surely?
I'm a Yorkshireman and the county has some fine towns, but the seaside resorts are mostly living monuments to man's capacity for taking natural beauty and ruining it.
I live in Germany, and many of my Anglophile German friends ask me for recommendations for seaside resorts on the east and south coasts for their holidays but I struggle.
The Dorset coast is extremely beautiful but Bridport, West Bay, Charmouth, Weymouth are all, I'm sorry to say, awful.
At least the London-based second-home buyers will stop buying failry soon - then Weymouth will become another Blackpool or Bridlington.

*Good lord what a damning piece about Weymouth. The only thing the sad writer is right about is we are a seaside town, proud of our Victorian and Georgian heritage. Yes we do have failing services and the buses are bad and all this is because the politicians in London make the dire comparison for our wages and for our funding which have been slashed so our housing sector,our schools and other public sectors are struggling because the politicians in London want to privatise these sectors. We struggle to make these services work but we keep ongoing. Sadly yes we have lost other departments and we do have to travel afield, no different than travelling across the zones of London. My son came out of College and is now training to be an engineer something he's wanted to do since he was seven. We have surpass able grades just like everyone else. Weymouth is a lovely quiet 21st century seaside town. we do have broadband and plenty of mobile masts. I for one enjoy the fact that there is as you put it wasteland to walk about,we have space for our children, our crime is low,we do not have gang cultures or postcode stabbings and everywhere has a heroin issue. We are a community of people who can step out of our front door, feel safe and go sit on the beach with the two donkeys rather that than high rise blocks of flats and views of motorways and big estates full of drive through and impersonal dealings with overrated shopping malls in London. Our dog walkers know each other and wave as they pass you by, on the tube train people don't even make contact in the small uncomfy spaces to make your journey. Jobs are available as a lot will travel half hour on our dual carriageways to Poole and Bournemouth or to Yeovil. We have the sun sea and fresh air. London is crowded expensive overbearing and very hard to breath in when the weather is hot.

*A lot of people commenting here are either missing the point, or scraping the barrel in settling for a dispensary of mediocrity with the classic 'there's plenty to do here!' .. sure, there's enough to do if you don't strive for creative ambition, which Tracy notes. The Sutton Poyntz Arts & Craft Show 2014 isn't going to cut it.

A lot of it lies within the council. The botched attempts (or lack thereof) to install the town as England's premier seaside resort were a horrendously cringe worthy display, pre and post 2012 games. There are a ton of good ideas to regenerate aspects of the town in the WeyForward project (https://www.facebook.com/weypeninsula), and it's a shame that the council aren't showing too much interest.

Weymouth is a town that alienates itself and doesn't want to see change. Having lived there on and off for 25 years (now off indefinitely, unlolle), it's a shame to watch it continue a downward spiral.

*Yes, agree. I wish something could be done, seriously, about 2nd home ownership. I don't mind so much about holiday cottages, which are occupied for large parts of the year, and holidaymakers spend money locally, but the Down-from-Londoners, in their 4WD with the car loaded with food they brought with them....just don't get me started!

*This is the inevitable outcome when councils devote the bulk of their resources to servicing the tourist industry instead of the people who live in the area. Yes there are some spin-offs from tourism, but mainly the benefits are to local business owners. The employment tends to be of the minimum wage (or less if they can get away with it) variety, and completely seasonal.

In return, local people are expected to put up with the yearly occupation of their town, the mess, the noise, the drinking and pissing in the streets, the late night violence and the loss of amenity space to even more car parks (yes I live in one of these places).

*So right. I lived in Weymouth until 3 years ago and used to make this exact comment over and over again. Weymouth and Portland Borough Council has to be one of the worst performing councils in the country, in terms of actually providing services for local people. Every August they spend a fortune on massive firework displays for tourists over the bay on Monday evenings. They look great. But the town is a toilet. Thanks WPBC but I'd rather have no fireworks and a functioning local economy.

*I grew up and lived in Weymouth until recently. I got out after 18 months of utter despair after leaving full-time education. The article is an amazingly accurate summation of all that is wrong with the place. It's a shell of it's former self, with little or no ambition and opportunity for young people, far too insular and adverse to any form of change and far to focused on tourism and tourists (and the fear of upsetting or losing them); about the only thing left. The town and surrounding areas used to have a number of research establishments, a naval base, a nuclear research site among others and all of the industry that went with it so I'm told by those of my parent's generation. Hard to believe, all gone now.

*Well I have grown up and lived in Bridport, Dorset and have always had work and have studied got on my chosen career path. I feel it is a thriving community and a great place for music and arts and there is plenty of life in the town. I feel incredibly blessed to live in such a beautiful part of the country with such an amazing community spirit. Who cares if you occasionally might not get a phone signal, there is more to life and when you live in such a beautiful place you should embrace it.

*Next time an article based on Weymouth is written then please get your facts correct.
Before I rant I will however confess that I have only skimmed through this as i got fairly bored so i'll leave comments sporadically about the bits I disagree with. I've lived here in weymouth almost all my life and have moved away and worked in cities such as Oxford and London. My time away from Weymouth showed me that Weymouth is actually a sweet place to live. The drug situation is far better than the filth I saw in London. The streets are cleaner, the people are a little more polite and there is far less stress. The fact Weymouth was importing drug dealers/users from London has helped no end. Apparently it was some kind of rehabilitation which ended up in new dealers supplying more vulnerable people. Ok yes, there is a huge problem with easy young women getting knocked up and for that I have no answer. I've never heard of collage being an issue because of busses. I'm fairly sure that part was just made up as a space filler. Yes the busses have got more expensive but not "I can't afford to go to collage" expensive. The ambition to go to uni and beyond is also far higher than this article makes out. I used to managed various bars in the town and they are often filled with collage/uni students. Many of them go on to be successful both in and out of Weymouth/Dorset. The pavilion is not only out of danger but is actually doing rather well now. It has been taken over by the community and Phil Say and his team are doing a great job of running it. Finally, yes the pay in Weymouth is horrendous and the living costs are ridiculously high which is why the young people here struggle but other than that it's really not that bad. There is plenty of opportunity here providing you pull your finger out and get it. I was laughed at when I said I would start my own business here and a year on my business is flourishing and I can now laugh. The council here are however stuck in the dark ages and very much afraid of change but that's a whole other story. Well that's my ten pence worth.

*I lived in Bridport for 15 years and it was a wrench to leave it. It's vibrant for music and the arts, and the people are fantastic but... the graveyard of ambition thing rings true. I brought my job with me and took it when I went, there was no way for me to earn very much in the town. Housing is incredibly expensive and the wages are low. It can take an hour to get to the nearest train station by bus from Bridport itself. Mobile signals are capricious at best and the broadband frustratingly slow if you are using it to work. Tourism is prioritised over everything, forgetting that people have to live there all year round and might need non-service industry jobs.

Holidayed in Weymouth a couple of years ago and this exactly chimed with my observations. Massive divide between the rich yachty quarter across the harbour and the rest of the town, parts of which look like what it is: a rough estate. Was horrified by the number of young people we saw stumbling around off their faces. They weren't on a some night time jolly but just getting through the day. The town, like most of the country, badly needs properly paid jobs.

*Having lived in both London and Weymouth, I can say, I'd far rather live in the latter. I cannot fathom a reason why I would ever move back to our capital.