At last, we have the Plan B Labour never developed if the casino hopes died a death. However, because it has been driven by ReBlackpool (the urban regeneration company), it is focused especially on projects for area they cover – which does not stretch to North Shore. Consequently, and twas ever thus, North Shore doesn’t really get a look in. On one level, that is a very harsh complaint, since as the report makes clear, the whole of the Fylde will be able to benefit from the plans. But North Shore has specific problems which are similar to the central wards. Declining holiday business, for example, is beginning to affect the hotel sector on North Shore. As the report points out, the position in these inner wards is worsening. It would be awful if one part of Blackpool revived only to see another decline further.

Yet it should also be pointed out that much of the 20 page report echoes themes already contained in the 168-page Local Area Plan published in 2006. That doesn’t make the new report a bad thing, but does show that this is a development of existing plans and priorities, and which constrains much of what the new Report can achieve.

Part of the problem in these central areas is the over-supply of low grade holiday accommodation. However, the Local Area Plan is extremely restrictive when it comes to ‘change of use’, and makes it very difficult to convert hotels for which there is no longer any demand into housing. This is, I suppose, partly a reaction to the equally over-supplied amount of HMOs, but I would much rather see efforts made to replicate other seaside towns’ experiences where those large properties near the sea front have been converted into large homes, and have acted as the seed-corns of regeneration. All it would need would be a policy of permitting only conversion into single dwellings. However, we are trapped in the Local Area Plan until 2016 thanks to Labour Government regulations. No change is permitted.

The Labour Government is also holding up another of the key goals of the report – Blackpool’s application to World Heritage Status, which I have discussed elsewhere on this blog at length. The report rightly outlines what Blackpool needs central government to do to help us help ourselves, but the signs are not good. Indeed, Labour have turned their backs on Blackpool, and Gordon Brown’s every action (as opposed to ‘friendly’ word at PMQs) demonstrates that, as I catalogue on this blog.

I am also a little concerned that the report aims to market Blackpool as a ‘niche’ conference destination, suggesting attracting smaller conferences. If this means a smaller conference centre, if and when one ever arrives, that would be a great shame. If we are to invest in a new conference venue, let’s make it one that will keep Blackpool at the top of the conference league, not a bit player.

But all in all, we have to welcome anything which tries to move Blackpool forward. But the dead weight of previous Labour Councils decisions in the Local Area Plan, and Labour’s turning its back on Blackpool at a national level, make the task that much harder.