Seaside funding creates design opportunities

Interior, graphic, wayfinding and retail design groups will be eyeing opportunities to work on new theatres, cinemas and cultural centres planned for seaside towns and resorts across the UK.

Newbiggin in Northumberland plans to spend its £1m award on creating a maritime heritage centre, cinema and exhibition space.

South Shields in Tyneside will spend £1m on a new performance space and year-round arts programme.

Worthing intends to regenerate the eastern end of its seafront, using its £500 000 award to create a new ‘cultural area’ and speakers’ corner.

North Norfolk District Council is looking to spend its £25 000 grant on transforming an existing listed building into a theatre, museum, exhibition and workshop space.

In Dawlish, a new arts café venue could be created on the site of an old bandstand, with the help of Sea Change’s £26 500 award to the town.

Penzance intends to use its £30 000 grant to develop a feasibility study into proposals for improvements to the town’s promenade.

Kent County Council has received £30 000 to investigate the creation of a route that could link the Crab and Winkle Way from Canterbury to Whitstable with the Viking Coastal Trail and the towns of Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs.

‘What all these projects share is the ambition to get the English seaside holiday back in fashion and for resorts to recapture the flair we know they once had,’ says Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment chief executive Richard Simmons. CABE is leading the Sea Change initiative.

‘These nine resorts have all shown that they want to use culture and high-quality design to encourage people to not only live and work there, but also to visit,’ adds Simmons.