What would Blackpool North candidates do to make the area more attractive to visitors at a time when the cost of living crisis is affecting tourism
The Blackpool Gazette and Blackpool Lead invited the candidates standing for the Blackpool North constituency at next month's general election to a hustings in which they fielded questions from voters.
The candidates standing for election on 4th July were each given 90 seconds to answer questions from an audience at a Cleveleys venue.
Six out of the eight people on the ballot took part in the event with Jeannine Creswell (Social Democratic Party) missing and a stand-in taking the place of the absent Lorraine Beavers.
In order of appearance on stage:
PAUL MAYNARD (Conservative Party)
JAMES RUST (Monster Raving Loony Party)
GITA GORDON (Independent)
BILL GREENE (Liberal Democrats)
TINA ROTHERY (Green Party)
DAN BARKER (Reform UK)
CLIVE GRUNSHAW (Labour [Stand-in])
The candidates standing for election on 4th July were each given 90 seconds to answer questions from an audience at a Cleveleys venue.
Six out of the eight people on the ballot took part in the event with Jeannine Creswell (Social Democratic Party) missing and a stand-in taking the place of the absent Lorraine Beavers.
In order of appearance on stage:
PAUL MAYNARD (Conservative Party)
JAMES RUST (Monster Raving Loony Party)
GITA GORDON (Independent)
BILL GREENE (Liberal Democrats)
TINA ROTHERY (Green Party)
DAN BARKER (Reform UK)
CLIVE GRUNSHAW (Labour [Stand-in])
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NewsTranscript
00:00The first question is on the subject of tourism and it is what would you or your party do to make
00:07this area more competitive and attractive to visitors at a time when the cost of living
00:13crisis is impacting local businesses and hotels?
00:17I'm going to focus on the national issues at all because you can all watch the TV and hear about
00:42them. Let's talk about the local issues maybe. So there are two aspects of this. I'll talk about
00:46Cleveleys, the work of the town board that I've been sitting on. Its precise role is to work out
00:51how to attract more visitors to Cleveleys which is focused upon attracting more coach visitors by
00:57improving coach parking, attracting the right businesses like the new milk store which is doing
01:02just that and that's why he's moved to Cleveleys for that very reason. In terms of Fleetwood,
01:07in 12 seconds it always used to be a resort town before a resort, a destination that people came
01:14to. That's why regeneration is so important that we have to get that right. Let's spend the 20
01:18million that I have secured at Fleetwood in a way that improves the visitor economy.
01:30Having just been to the modern 24-hour race, I think we should introduce a 24-hour tram race
01:37between Stargate and Fleetwood and that will attract lots of people. There are over 300,000
01:43people. We could get at least 300,000 people to watch the trams racing and the buses.
01:53Thank you. Blackpool was always a tourism town and look what they did to it. We lost everything.
02:02There was to be a Disneyland style of a fun park here. That never came here. So for tourism,
02:11let's start with that. It's all about people. Putting the people here first. The hotels,
02:18the smaller hotels are struggling. The taxi drivers are struggling. There are lots of unregulated,
02:26unlicensed taxi cars that run. So that is affecting the tourism as well.
02:33Then how many of us know that our own Blackpool rock that we were so very proud of,
02:42that was destroyed. Cheap imports from China. I'm not against China. I'm not against Chinese stuff.
02:49Okay, thank you very much. But there is a lot we can do with putting our own industry here first.
03:03I do not see how I can attract anybody to any place if you've got storage in the seas and in
03:10the rivers. Therefore, the one thing we have got to do before we do anything is to clean our rivers,
03:19clean our seas and indefinitely clean our beaches.
03:26Damn, I hate it when someone steals my line. So my line is, we have a brown flat beach.
03:32Which just sounds icky. And it's true. And that's how tourism is based on that. But I'd also like
03:37to add, we brought in hotels from like big conglomerates, rather than salvaging and saving
03:43and helping our small B&Bs that have now been left to rack and ruin, which makes the town look
03:48terrible. Why did we not ease their tax burden and help them rather than bringing in big companies
03:53for whom the profits go to the shareholders who don't live here, rather than the B&B owners who
03:58would have continued to add to the character of our town.
04:05Thank you. So all the people I've spoken to on the doorstep in the last few weeks,
04:09no one's talked to me about tourism. No one has mentioned that at all. They've asked me,
04:13how do I keep my young people here? How do I stop them moving out of the area? How do we have
04:17year-round jobs to keep people here? And so my plan is to get fishing back in Fleetwood, to reopen
04:23the railway line, and also to bring a film studio to the Fylde Coast, because that will actually
04:29open up opportunities for young people for high value, high skill jobs, which means we're not
04:34dependent on the tourism industry, that's seasonal, that's up and down, depends on the weather. I want
04:39to give an alternative and diversify the economy. Okay, much has been said, but I'll say the way
04:50that can, I know Lorraine is a huge supporter of that, because behind that, you could have a lagoon
04:56that you could use for sports activities that would bring people in, and that would regenerate
05:01Fleetwood. The Blackpool Airport, potential for bringing more tourists into the local area,
05:08so if we can invest in that, get Blackpool back to the standard it used to be. So tackle HMOs,
05:15tackle anti-social behaviour, invest in the local community, work with the holiday industry,
05:21come up the town far more than what we're doing now. So there are a number of things
05:27that can make a real difference.