Postcards from the edge: Seaside images

I've finally got around to uploading a selection of images taken at various English seaside resorts over the last two years. Many were taken as part of my case study work for the Sea Change regeneration programme, operated by CABE.

I am particularly interested in the many social and economic problems that face most of our seaside resorts.  There are high levels of poverty - among the country's highest - tempered by the bright lights and thumping disco music of amusement arcades and fairgrounds. The seaside is not just the domain of holidaymakers and daytrippers, but for the elderly and deprived. Most seaside resorts record above-average levels of unemployment, crime, drug use, prostitution and illiteracy.

Our coastline represents the end of the line. A place of flotsam and jetsam. The seaside is a place of contrasts, where old exists alongside new, smut with children's entertainment, gaiety with despair.

But most of all, I love the English seaside (or more generally, the British seaside). I was a staycationer before the name was invented. I love the signs, smells, sand and lots of other things beginning with S. I have many early memories of the coast, with family holidays spent in a variety of caravans towed behind a gleaming Ford Corsair. Perhaps it's because I come from the dead centre of England, but nothing fascinates quite like the sea.