Blackpool: what is it really like now?

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

We watched an old 'run' of episodes of Four In A Bed and one of the couples ran a Hotel/B&B in Blackpool. It looked a wonderful place and they seemed like excellent, accommodating hosts - I'd really love to stay there once we're able to travel freely again.

I used to absolutely love going to Blackpool. My family (when we were kids) went there every year and it holds so many fond memories. Obviously, it's never been intended to be the most sophisticated of places, but that doesn't bother us at all.

However, we haven't been there for over 20 years and I just hear an endless catalogue of woes about how unspeakably terrible it is now, full of addicts taking drugs in public, lots of crime, and that nobody in their right mind would ever consider going there now. Even when close family members who live in a rather nice county (not a posh one, though) went a few years ago, the taxi driver who picked them up from the station asked where they'd come from and, when they told him, asked, open-mouthed and genuinely shocked, "But why?!?!?!"

It's clearly still very popular and still sees a huge number of visitors every year, so what's the skinny on it? If you live there or nearby, have been recently or have other knowledge of the town, please tell me the honest truth as you see/know it - good and bad! Are there any particular places or aspects that you remember fondly (or still love) and/or anything that has well and truly been destroyed forever?

I adore Blackpool. In fact, we are in the process of moving up to the Fylde coast after almost two decades in the South East and a few years abroad.

Let me tell you, in all my years visiting Blackpool (often several times a year) i've never seen any drugs, dealers, prostitution, muggings or crime of any kind....the same can't be said for my time in London and Brighton. I'm not saying it's not there, it clearly is, but I'm in Brighton right now and it's so blatant down here, i'm sick of it. I can't walk the few miles to town without several addicts begging me for money. No one has ever asked me for a penny in Blackpool. Ever. Quite the opposite. I find people so kind, friendly and willing to give you help if you need it. Perhaps i've just been lucky.

I've read this week, there's a huge regeneration plan going ahead this year, with an extension to Houndshill shopping centre which will include an IMAX cinema and a new fancy hotel where the Golden Mile Arcade is. Blackpool isn't on it's arse yet.

2020 hasn't been kind to anywhere, especially seaside towns, but with more folk than ever staying in the UK to holiday, i reckon it will do quite well in 2021. Fingers crossed!

@patsy the plans for Blackpool are huge. We were just talking about it all the other day. I love the Fylde and can't imagine living anywhere else. We have the tourist attractions, countryside, city life not far, small independent towns, public transport is great and much more affordable than other places. Hope your move goes well

We go to Blackpool every year for the illuminations for a few hours (we live in Manchester). The kids love the arcades and the pier rides. It's a cheap, fun way to spend a wet October day in half term! Love the greasy chips, the novelty shaped rock and the flashing lights that last five minutes!

We have spent a few days in Blackpool in recent years (staying over) to visit several attractions in one visit. We stayed at the Travelodge South Promenade as we didn't know which B&B to choose. The Travelodge was great with free parking and next door to Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

The Pleasure Beach is great fun, the Tower is superb and the Zoo is absolutely fantastic (we actually enjoyed it more then Chester).

I wouldn't go for the shopping or hang around the streets!

However, I would stay in st Anne's and go to Blackpool for the day to visit the zoo, piers, sandcastle, illuminations, tower and pleasure beach. It's fantastic with kids for doing those things.

St Anne's has a brilliant kid friendly beach with pier, slot machines, ice creams, beach huts, donkeys, miniature railway, trampolines, boating lake etc etc on a smaller scale and not rough. So you can get a seaside experience there too. There are nice little shops and restaurants in lytham too. So stay round st Anne's and lytham in the evening.

Blackpool was always rough and seedy at night.

Although the OP has asked for honest views and it's fine that she's getting them, I think a few people on this thread ought to bear in mind that they're insulting some people's home town.

Now its just homeless people, drug addicts, benefits scroungers and cheats. You can't get a good bag of chips - they are all now swimming in grease - everyone is rude and it's just vile. The BnBs are all full of people waiting for council houses and they arent even welcoming any more.

I pressed post too early. It's untrue to say Blackpool is 'just' these things, yes the town centre is grim these days and as a former resident (before anyone asks, I'd still be there if not for work and love life changes) it really saddens me how run-down and deprived it's been allowed to get, but there are nicer parts of the town just like there is anywhere else. The further you go up the coast (while still being within Blackpool) the pleasanter it is, broadly speaking. Your comments about the B&Bs are also misleading exaggerations, there are some awful ones but also some real gems.

No town is 'just' anything. Don't tar everything or everybody with the same brush. Some of the 'scroungers' you talk about are decent people trying to exist in desperate poverty, btw.

We went in October. Stayed in a Premier Inn at Bispham. Service was good and staff very friendly. We loved Sandcastles swimming pool. Had a lovely dinner at La Piazza in Bispham. We went to the amusement arcades and on the rides on the pier. Had a great fish and chips at Bentley's fish and chip shop. Stanley Park was lovely - especially the cafe.

Does it seem a bit run down? Yes
Did we have fun? Yes
Did the kids want to go back (6&11) Yes

@HermioneWeasley

It is not like any other British seaside town - I love Scarborough and when I went to Blackpool (for work) for the first time, assumed it would be very similar. I was horrified, it is all run down, full of the most hopeless looking people I’ve ever seen, the poverty is evident and vast areas smell of piss. I only return when forced. It is beyond grim. I would NEVER take my family there - why would you when there are actually pleasant places to go?

As a recent visitor to Scarborough it is also as run down as Blackpool....soon as you walk behind the front facing streets. However the same applies.....can you have fun there? Are there run down areas? Would I go back? Yes, and would always stay at North beach and venture to south Beach for candy floss and amusements. I would love to see places like this get a bit of investment

It’s not just these things at all.
Blackpool tower ballroom is a gleaming palace of eccentricity. An afternoon there in normal times, eating creamcakes, listening to the wurlitzer, and watching the dancers in their best frocks is a total treat. It’s kitsch and bizarre and magnificent, like watching an episode of Louis Theroux live.
Flashing lights, bumper cars, grabber machines, live bingo....most kids ADORE this stuff. Yes you spend £££££s trying to win something from the pound shop. This is the magic! The beach is ok, sandcastles is fun, the live entertainment is brash loud and silly . My kids liked to go shopping in the Bpool Primark for sequinned party dresses, then pop by the fancy dress place for purple hair and fairy wands and spend the night feeling a million dollars playing on the 2p machines. Candyfloss in one hand, radioactive rainbow slushy in the other. Ahhhhh don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got til it’s gone - We’d love a day or two in a covid free Blackpool right now.

@Biscoffaddict

Didn’t a few young girls go missing about twenty years ago? Rumoured to have been murdered by takeaway owners? Very seedy place.

That did happen but then as a comparison weren't two young girls snatched and murdered in a quaint middle class place village like Soham.

To easy to make sweeping generalisations.

I'm from Edinburgh; people think it's amazing but it's full of drug addicts too in certain parts so.........

vast areas smell of piss.

@HermioneWeasley this might have been the case when you were there for some bizarre reason, but I grew up in Blackpool, lived there for 20+ years, had many many nights out there, still return regularly, and have never, day or night, experienced 'vast areas smelling of piss.' Literally never.

Not been since I was a kid in the early noughties. I much prefer the Yorkshire coast, Scarborough, filey, whitby

I live next door to Blackpool. And I have never felt in danger, I don't really see many homeless people. I've never once seen a fight on a night out. I think a lot of people just see Blackpool for what it's perceived to be when reality it's not. I guess some people just love to hate it.

This amazing pic was taken in Blackpool

Starlings Letsrunabath? That is amazing.

It’s not just these things at all.
Blackpool tower ballroom is a gleaming palace of eccentricity. An afternoon there in normal times, eating creamcakes, listening to the wurlitzer, and watching the dancers in their best frocks is a total treat. It’s kitsch and bizarre and magnificent, like watching an episode of Louis Theroux live.
Flashing lights, bumper cars, grabber machines, live bingo....most kids ADORE this stuff. Yes you spend £££££s trying to win something from the pound shop. This is the magic! The beach is ok, sandcastles is fun, the live entertainment is brash loud and silly . My kids liked to go shopping in the Bpool Primark for sequinned party dresses, then pop by the fancy dress place for purple hair and fairy wands and spend the night feeling a million dollars playing on the 2p machines. Candyfloss in one hand, radioactive rainbow slushy in the other. Ahhhhh don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got til it’s gone grin - We’d love a day or two in a covid free Blackpool right now.

You capture it.

@Floridaflipflops

St Anne’s further on down is nice.

Blackpool no. It’s very very run down.

I used to live in St Annes for work. Smaller and nicer although 20+ years ago the beach was littered with what a colleague decscribed as assorted sanitary items (plastic tampon applicators & the pull off strips from sanitary towels - there was probably worse but I never delved). Used to avoid Blackpool itself.

ParadiseinMoscow

Blackpool is fun. It is seedy and rundown and has its fair share of addicts, homeless, etc, but it's what you make it. We went a few times for the day when I was a child and I loved the Tower, it was so unlike anywhere I'd ever been before. The ballroom is simply stunning. The fair is massive, far bigger than any other I've been to (apart from Theme Parks), and I was always fascinated by the trams!

In my twenties, I went there on a hen night, we had a brilliant time. All the bars and clubs were so much cheaper than down south and people were really friendly.

I took my DC there about 10 years ago for the day and they loved it too, highlight was fish and chips on the beach and seeing the illuminations.

I think a day of two is enough though, I wouldn't want to go for a holiday.

DH grew up going to Blackpool twice a year, in the 70s/80s. His family always went on about how amazing it was (they stayed in those B&Bs that chucked you out all day).
MIL complained we used to go on fancy foreign holidays when we could just go to Blackpool (although by then they were going to Spain instead).
So we paid for them to go to Blackpool for a big anniversary. She literally wouldn’t talk about it and never mentioned the place again.
I dread to think what she saw....

@Kendodd

Last time I went to Blackpool I was about eight. A big fat women fell on top of me in the street, I haven't been back since.

Howling

So nostalgic! I went every year as a little one. Stayed in a hotel on the front.I want to say Norbrek but not sure. I loved getting the illuminated tram to Bispham, the fish and chips, the glitter the 2 p machines etc. I took my twins aged about 5 and we recreated it but in a diff hotel.They are now 20 and still talk about the Tower, the Pleasure beach, even the name of the bloody donkeys! It was sparkly, and kitsch and they loved it. Im sure its changed drastically, I would still return but not for an extended stay

Shampops

I remember watching a programme about Blackpool and someone on it said that one reason the town has a high homeless population is because people who are down on their luck gravitate there as they associate the place with happy memories from their childhood. I found that quite poignant.“

It is. A very good friend from Bury who now lives in London used to holiday in Blackpool every year with her mum and dad. I’m from the south but now live close by. I was gobsmacked by how awful the town centre was when we arrived, spoke to my friend about it and she was mightily offended. She had nothing but happy memories from the 60s/70s and thought I was being a snotty southerner.
Her mum wanted to visit once more for her 90th birthday a few years ago. They stayed at The Imperial, which was “ok”. My friend called me the day after taking her mum home to say she really wished she’d listened to me. She and her mum were horrified at how the town has declined since its heydays and her mum wished she hadn’t gone back. Her lovely memories have been replaced by new, unpleasant ones.
It’s not just late at night. I had to drive home along the prom from school and it’s quite difficult trying to explain why ladies and men are fighting or throwing up outside bars at 4.30 pm to a then 8 year old. We went to watch friends’ children performing at the Grand Theatre (which is beautiful) a couple of times. The walks back to the car with young children at night was bloody scary.
The town centre is really not a nice place.

The Zoo is lovely, as others have said, and Stanley Park is a nice residential area with Edwardian houses that would be £1 million plus in London but we just don’t go into the town.

That photo is fabulous: we used to see the starling murmurations every night on the way home from school as they flew to roost on the piers. The subsets are lovely too but best viewed from St. Annes.

I agree with @Denisethemenace. People down on their luck are drawn to places they hope will make their lives better. Blackpool is no different from Morecambe, Margate, Swansea and other similar seaside places who have had their heyday. Poverty exists everywhere and it's a fact of life. They are spending millions of on extending the tram lines but still have an awful bus station. There is the fabulous Stanley Park but very seedy areas and even the Tower is grim inside (apart from the gorgeous ballroom). The illuminations are amazing but the back streets are challenging. Scrape the surface of most poor seaside places and they are all the same. But I'd still go for the day to walk on the promenade, eat candy floss, go on a motor boat in the park and then walk the lights with a bag of chips.

Sunsets, not subsets 😁