I will be blogging the outcomes of the meeting in full over the next few days, but for now here are the presentations given by myself and John Fisher analysing the current state of seaside towns and proposing a some next steps for the project.

So that we capture as many of your views as possible and ensure the main phase of the project is relevant and useful to your local authority areas and your organisations themselves, I would really appreciate it if you could take a look at the presentations below and above all leave a comment on some of the issues raised, including (but not exclusively):

• who should be part of this analysis (the group of 35-40)?
• are the policy priorities identified correct?
• do you agree with the proposed next steps?
• have we missed anything obvious out?

Interim report (project background, key findings and next steps)

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State of coastal towns (draft first cut)

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For the coming 6 months, this blog will be the home of the Coastal Towns Project.

This project will support current on-going work aimed at developing policy nationally in relation to coastal towns, raise the profile of coastal towns in national policy, and ultimately provide an outline blueprint for action for place shaping in English coastal towns.

While recognising how diverse coastal towns are, this project aims to identify some of the key issues ad challenges facing local authorities managing coastal towns and support those local leaders to develop policies for the future development and success of these areas.

Having previously worked together on the Successful City-Suburbs project, the Coastal Towns project is being led by the Leadership Centre for Local Government and delivered by Local Futures and FutureGov.