Type of area

Population base and socio-economic characteristics

Measures of deprivation

The statistics relating to deprivation reveal serious socio-economic difficulties and are outlined at www.coastalactionzone.co.uk. People living on the Coast are older than the national average – 26% are over 65 against 16% nationally and their ethnicity is overwhelmingly (99%) white. Residents of working age have dramatically different socio-economic characteristics from the county, regional and English averages:

• Skill levels are extremely low – 50% of people have no qualifications whatsoever (25% nationally), and only 8% are graduates (28% nationally).
• Only 54% of people aged 16-74 are either in work or seeking work (ie unemployed) against 68% nationally.
• Incapacity Benefit claims are at significantly high levels. In Trusthorpe and Mablethorpe South ward, 250 (29%) of the 861 residents aged 16-59 are on Incapacity Benefit. There is little doubt that the numbers would fall if economic conditions were better.
• Of the relatively small numbers in work, 40% work part-time only against a national average of 22%.
• Tourism leads to extreme seasonality in employment. For instance, numbers on the unemployment register (JSA claimants) doubled between August 2005 and January 2006.
• 15 wards inside the Coastal Action Zone are within the 20% most deprived and 5 within the 10% most deprived wards in England.

The map shows official indices of deprivation at super-output area level. The Coastal Action Zone appears in red (most deprived) and the inset map shows that this ‘most deprived’ status is shared with the obvious inner city areas but with few other rural areas other than Cornwall, which is designated an Objective 1 Area.

An opportunity

The very isolation and deprivation of the Coast presents a specific opportunity. The jobs created by the casino and other leisure facilities will, mainly, offer modest wages indicatively between 10% and 100% higher than the minimum wage, or some £10,000-£20,000 a year depending on the job. Moreover, many of the jobs would be year-round, lessening the problem of seasonality of employment which is one of the main difficulties facing residents seeking work. These conditions are attractive to residents but insufficient to induce significant in-commuting given the distances that commuters would need to travel. In short, most jobs would go to local people.

In keeping with the strict operating practices casinos invest heavily in training adding to the local skills base especially in customer care – a vital element in a service based economy such as ours.

Tourism in the Coastal Action Zone

A central element of our tourism strategy is the development of ‘year-round’ facilities, such as the casino, to lessen the seasonality of current tourism. The Coast attracts over six million visitors per annum and has numerous visitor attractions, the largest in terms of visitor numbers include:

• Magical World of Fantasy Island (which is one of the possible casino sites).
• Skegness Natureland Seal Sanctuary.
• Skegness Water Park.
• Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve.

Transport access

It is important to emphasise the isolation of the Coastal Action Zone from areas of economic success. Skegness is an hour by car from Lincoln and is two hours from major centres of prosperity such as Peterborough and Nottingham. The Coast lacks an FE college and travel-to-learn times from Skegness to colleges in Grimsby, Boston and Lincoln average an hour one way by car. All travel times are greatly increased if public transport is used. This degree of isolation make it impractical for people without reliable cars to access employment and learning opportunities away from the Coast, and makes the effects of deprivation worse than in the inner cities which – whatever their problems – are at least adjacent to many opportunities.

Map 2 shows the location of the Coastal Action Zone and specifically of its two main settlements, Skegness and Mablethorpe. Visitors from much of England have good access to the M180 and to the near-motorway A1, but from these major routes to the Coast road travellers face long journeys.

Central Trains provides a rail link from Skegness to the East Coast Mainline station at Grantham via Boston and Sleaford, but this link transports only a small proportion of total visitor numbers. Similarly, the local bus services accommodate only small numbers of visitors: the predominant mode of transport is the private car.

Origins of visitors

The market for the resorts of the Coastal Action Zone has been for decades the industrial areas of South Yorkshire and the East Midlands, areas already served by casinos, with the local, Lincolnshire market in a secondary role. This remains the position today, though visitor numbers from farther afield and even from abroad are already significant and growing in importance – and our tourism strategy, of which this casino proposal is a central part, aims to reinforce these trends.