‘Walking past empty shops and street drinkers, it feels Bournemouth has squandered its advantage’

All summer we will be taking the pulse of our most famous traditional seaside towns, examining the efforts being made to regenerate them, and opining on whether they are still worth visiting. This week, Gavin Haines explores Bournemouth.

For a period in my hard-up early twenties, I lived in a bedsit in Bournemouth with a ticket tout and a bloke who’d just done time for GBH.

Sunny places attract shady people. The house was a wreck and sometimes the police smashed the door down to raid it. Still, rent was £56 a week, leaving me with a few quid once I’d drawn my meagre salary as a junior journalist.

I mention all this in the interests of transparency. I have history in this town. This was my beat as a features writer at the Bournemouth Echo before the internet gutted local press. And here I am again, 16 years later, back in my old stomping ground, resisting the urge to slip into nostalgia.

It’s hard not to up on the clifftop. Looking out across the shimmering bay and its seven miles of golden sand – the chalk stacks of the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Purbeck in the distance – I’m reminded of why I fell in love with this place. The setting is sublime.

Built as a health resort in the late-Georgian era, Bournemouth was where wealthy people went to convalesce. Pine trees, thought to be good for inflammation, were planted everywhere – and still stand, providing a verdant canopy for the town. Hotels were built. Theatres and galleries followed.

Visiting writers found inspiration in the new resort, among them Mary Shelley, who’s buried in St Peter’s Church, opposite a Wetherspoons. Robert Louis Stevenson came later.

They helped make the place fashionable, put Bournemouth on the map.

The resort stood firm as cheap flights took off; the decline in domestic tourism was less pronounced here than in other seaside towns. Its beaches remained busy.

Meanwhile, the financial services industry brought year-round jobs and wealth (JP Morgan, Nationwide and Liverpool Victoria have offices here). Louche stag and hen dos oiled the wheels of the night-time economy – and still do.

Ditto students at Bournemouth University, which keeps the town young and curious, and sent me into the world with a degree.

What’s it really like?

Despite its youth and affluence, Bournemouth town centre has the weary look of a hungover stag. Walking past permanently closed nightclubs, empty shops and street drinkers, there’s a sense that Bournemouth has squandered its advantage.

The local council – slammed by Transparency International in 2020 for having insufficient anti-corruption safeguards (though no allegations of impropriety were made) – is skint, with officials admitting earlier this year that the financial situation was “as bad as it could be.”

It’s had to slash funding for, among other things, the town’s crowd-pleasing Air Festival. A new tourist tax is being considered to plug financial holes. From September, visitors may have to pay a £2 levy per night to stay.

And yet there’s optimism in the air. Last year, Bournemouth got its first five-star hotel, The Nici, which brought Miami vibes (but not the weather) to West Cliff. That The Ivy is due to open a restaurant in the old New Look is another vote of confidence in the town.

Meanwhile, the former Debenhams department store – a grand red-brick building in Bournemouth Square – is undergoing a £10m revamp as a multi-use venue called Bobby & Co, which includes retail, offices, co-working spaces, and – soon – The Botanist cocktail bar.

“Bournemouth is a bit sad at the moment,” admits Hattie Dyas, Bobby & Co’s marketing exec, showing me around the place. “But I think that will change quickly.”

Also trying to redefine the high street is South Coast Makers’ Market, located nearby in The Avenue shopping centre. There, local artisans sell clothes, art and other wares in the old JD Sports.

“People come in and are excited to see something that hasn’t been mass produced in China,” Emma Fairthorne, the manager, tells me. “It sounds hippy, but they feel the love that’s gone into it. I think it’s going to be down to independents to rejuvenate the high street.”

That’s certainly been the case over in Southbourne, where indie shops, bars and restaurants are creating a genteel buzz in the seaside suburb.

What’s not to like?

Running the gauntlet of themed bars, chain restaurants and big retailers in the centre, you can’t help but feel that the town has sold its soul. There’s no localism, not even a proper boozer. For that you’ve got to walk up Poole Hill to the reassuringly traditional Goat & Tricycle.

New developments have often been unsympathetic to the town’s Georgian and Victorian aesthetic. White elephants abound, not least the ill-fated Boscombe surf reef, which was meant to turn the town into a gnarly surfer’s paradise but instead made it a laughing stock.

Another architectural disaster that kept my colleagues busy at the Echo was the Waterfront development, a monumentally ugly cinema complex that replaced the Victorian baths on the seafront, partially obscuring the town’s sea views.

It was crowned England’s most hated building in 2005. Eight years later they finally razed it.

Do this

Flautist Mik Parsons is playing Mozart’s Andante in C major when I walk into the Russell-Coates Art Gallery and Museum. “We’re the last bit of culture in town,” says Eliza Robinson, the gallery’s development officer, showing me around. It feels like it, too.

There’s nothing like this anywhere else in Bournemouth.

Renowned for its collection of Pre-Raphaelite art, the gallery occupies a pretty Victorian mansion up on East Cliff, complete with Japanese garden. “Venus is our party piece,” says Robinson, leading me to the topless, red-headed goddess painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. “She’s often travelling the world, on loan.” Not today. I’m in luck.

Eat this

In a charming Victorian arcade in Westbourne is Renoufs, an appropriately pongy shop selling a local delicacy: Dorset blue vinny, a blue cheese made by hand in nearby Sturminster Newton.

Also in Westbourne is a fish and chip shop of note: Chez Fred. It’s always buzzing because the food’s fantastic, the staff charming, and the fish comes with unlimited chips.

But don’t do this

Bournemouth pier. It looks pretty, but you have to pay £1.65 for the privilege of walking on it. That’s not a lot, but it’s a matter of principle, the thin end of the wedge. What next, a tourist tax?

Oh… There’s not really anything of note at the end of the pier anyway, except for a cafe and rides where you’ll inevitably be encouraged to splash more cash.

From locals

“We don’t know how good we’ve got it,” says David, a local resident who declines to give his surname. “We’re fortunate to live where we do because of the natural environment around us.

Any day you’re feeling down you can go to the clifftop and look out at the sweep of the bay.”

“There’s lots of cool stuff going on, lots of festivals on the periphery [Arts by the Sea being one highlight],” adds Steve Lynch, who’s strumming his guitar in the lower pleasure gardens. He and bassist Jason Bowles are warming up for their gig at Glasto.

“The town centre is a bit desolate,” admits Lynch. “People can’t afford to go out like they used to. The drinking culture has changed since I was growing up. You could go out two or three nights a week and still put food on the table. Not at £6.50 a pint.”

From tourists

“The buildings are pretty. It’s a gorgeous town, but expensive,” says Ophélie Laurent, a student from Vendée, France. “It’s beautiful,” adds her friend, Matthias Bouliung, “but it’s spread out and I don’t know where to go.”

Down at the beach, Stephen and Jayne Fisher from Newport, Wales, are catching some sun. “We’re of an age when we remember coming to the seaside as kids and it was great. Now it’s a bit sorry,” says Stephen.

“It needs more investment. There’s all these bars and restaurants coming in but nothing for the people.”

Stay here

An eco-hotel that’s quietly luxurious and never preachy, The Green House occupies a whitewashed Victorian villa up on East Cliff.

Set amid lofty birch trees and swaying palms, it has a destination restaurant on the ground floor – Arbor – which champions local produce from Dorset and the New Forest. I was delighted to have a roll-top bath in my bedroom.

Get there

Cutting through the New Forest and skirting Southampton port, the train from London to Bournemouth is scenic and takes under two hours. There are also direct trains from the midlands and north.