Beyond their Piers

1996 was the "Year of the Pier", where there celebrations up and down the country of the UK’s piers.

Just 14 years later you could never have told that it had taken place.

Today Colwyn and Blackpool North are slowly decaying.
Southport is looking bleak
Brighton’s West Pier met a fiery fate, a fate that Weston-Super Mare’s has also succumbed to.
Hastings Pier has been closed as it’s unsafe and if you believe the story that was on the local news up in Norfolk last night, Cromer’s will go the same way within two years.
And if it hasn’t been hit by a ship or caught fire in the last 12 months Southend Pier will have one of those things befall it within the next 12 (It’s always either being cut in two by ships or spontaneously combusting)

Given the numbers using Cromer pier when I visited today, it would be a shame to see them go.

However, at the same time they have lost some of the sparkle that started the craze for building them in the first place. Whilst Victorians marvelled at the thought of being able to walk above the water we barely give any thought to the fact that it’s several satellites in space all working together that tell the Sat Nav how to get to the car park for the pier.

Perhaps the pier is just too much a 19th century institution. Will they last another 14 years, yet alone to the 22nd century?

Sorry NW England Closed

Over the course of the day it’s been becoming increasingly obvious that there is major disruption being caused by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

This has been really brought home on my way back from the station this evening.

Where as this morning there was a mix of vacancy and no vacancy signs on the B&Bs on my walk into Blackpool town centre, by this evening every single hotel and B&B was displaying a No Vacancy sign.

I had to get my key card reprogrammed as it had decided to stop working, and the people in the queue in front of me were desperate. They had tried hotels close to John Lennon Airport in Liverpool, and then they had tried over a slightly wider area. They had then driven up to Blackpool in the, very sensible, idea that as it’s got so many hotels there would be spaces.

Unfortunately, many other people had already had the same idea, and gotten here first, so there were no spaces. The very helpful lady on reception was looking for them, but the best she could offer was Carlisle.

So whatever disruption the cloud brings, for UK hotels there is quite a profitable silver lining.

I’m trying to like it, really I am...

Sorry Morecambe, you’ve dropped down to a distant fifth. Blackpool’s gone straight in at four, and is possibly climbing

I’m not quite certain what it is that I’m disliking about Blackpool, but I think it could be it’s identity crisis.

Is it the Stag and Hen capital of the UK, in which case stop trying to draw the family crowds.

Or is it a major family seaside resort, in which case might it be wise to loose some of the seedier sea front attractions (three “gentlemen’s establishments” spotted already and counting)

Perhaps it also doesn’t help that directly behind the sea front appears to just be a car park, stretching for as far as the eye can see.