A seaside town fighting to turn the tide of prosperity

Owen Hughes walked through town called every name under the sun

- By OWEN HUGHES Chief Reporter [e-mail]

The high street of Rhyl

RHYL is a seaside town that has had more than its fair share of criticism in recent years. Among the unfortunate things it's been dubbed are "worst seaside town in the UK", "infamous" and "rundown".

I was brought up around Colwyn Bay, so I know ball when it comes to once prosperous resorts that suffered the consequences of changing holiday tastes - compounded by disastrous decision making and poorly invested regeneration funds.

Immigration dominates the political agenda and headlines right now, but it was internal migration within in the UK that trapped both these towns into a vicious circle.

When the demand for British sea, sand and amusement arcade holidays waned the resorts were left with a glut of empty properties. Many were divided up into HMOs and people encouraged to leave poorer areas of cities and towns in England for a slice of life at the seaside.

Placed into cheap and substandard housing, often a 'dream' move to the seaside did nothing to change their own fortunes and instead imported drink, drug, mental health and crime issues into these fading resorts from the Victorian era.

As visitor numbers fell, this left once famous attractions struggling financially and starting to fall by the wayside.

As a child and teen, Rhyl was all about the funfair and the Sun Centre, one place almost everyone I met had been at some point in their childhood.

When the money is not flowing in, then private sector investments aren't made into upgrading or replacing these attractions for the next generation and public money has too often not been spent wisely.

The Ocean Beach funfair went in 2007 - finally replaced by a shopping park after many setbacks and delays.

The Sun Centre, originally opened in 1980, closed permanently in 2014, a real failure of Denbighshire Council funded trust Clwyd Leisure.