About the towards a new coastal classification project

Growing awareness of the many challenges facing coastal communities perhaps parallels the 're-discovery' of inner-city deprivation in the 1970s. Evidence presented in the 2021 Chief Medical Officer's annual report suggests that coastal areas have some of the worst health outcomes in England, with low life expectancy and high rates of many major diseases. The 2022 Levelling up White Paper similarly notes that seaside towns have among the highest levels of community need and poor opportunities for the people who grow up there. 

While policy attention is starting to be directed towards the needs of coastal communities, there are barriers to developing effective (and cost-effective) policy solutions. We have insufficient knowledge about the nature and diversity of coastal communities, some of which face serious challenges (are 'lagging'), while others are doing very well ('leading'). The potentially causal, dynamic (but modifiable) relationships between key economic, social, cultural, political, and historical factors are poorly understood. The funding and implementation of targeted policies are made difficult by the fact that few jurisdictional geographies serve predominately coastal populations. As most routine data on public services are published at large levels, the specific needs of coastal communities within these larger geographies are often unreported. Coastal communities thus lack both a political 'voice' through which to articulate their needs and an organisational context through which to develop policy responses to those needs. 

The classification will contribute to a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the varied characteristics and needs of coastal communities, and of the causal factors creating inequality. This is a necessary precursor to developing an effective response to coastal communities' needs, including as part of the 'levelling up' agenda. The work will help to avoid duplication of effort by local studies/interventions which presently need to establish their own criteria, units of analysis and evidence base. A classification of coastal communities will also facilitate shared learning from applied research and evaluations of locally implemented policies, strategies, and interventions.

This research will be of direct benefit to a very wide range of academics working in the fields of geography, sociology, social policy, health and social care, criminology, education and social work as well as policy makers working at both local and national levels. While a huge range of 'open-access' socio-economic and demographic data is available for all parts of England at a variety of scales, there is no agreed categorisation of which local administrative areas are 'coastal'/'non-coastal', no systematic analysis of data relating to coastal populations, and no single resource to support research and policy development aimed at addressing the needs of coastal communities.

A national initiative which engages with relevant academic and policy stakeholders will avoid duplication of effort by local studies on coastal communities which currently need to establish their own criteria, units of analysis and evidence base. In this respect, we view the collation and dissemination of a wide range of data at a variety of scales as a crucial tool for further cross- and multi-disciplinary investigation in this under-researched area. 

The classification will thus contribute to a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the varied characteristics and needs of coastal communities, in particular highlighting potentially causal, dynamic (but modifiable) relationships between key phenomena such as local and regional industrial, economic, housing and demographic structures; transport links and geographical isolation; access to employment, educational and cultural opportunities; age-specific patterns of seasonal and permanent migration; and socio-economic outcomes relating to health, education, social mobility and wider components of deprivation. 

The classification of coastal communities will also facilitate shared learning from applied research and evaluations of locally implemented policies, strategies and interventions, partly through the use of common definitions and geographies and partly because the essence of such a classification is to direct attention towards shared/divergent circumstances. It becomes, in other words, easier to assess where successful policy responses can be replicated, and what additional challenges would need to be addressed. In this respect, the proposal is responding directly to the call in the Levelling Up White Paper for an investment in data collection, publication, and analysis, to inform decision-making, improve accountability, and support greater evaluation and experimentation in the "what works?" spirit of policymaking. 

Once the final classification has been agreed, all data and metadata will be submitted for archiving by the UK Data Service. A round of conference/workshops will be used to ensure maximum exposure of the utility of the new resource to academics and policy makers alike. Presentations will incorporate both 'how to' guidance and demonstrations for academics and policy stakeholders who are interested in using the classification in practice and 'how to' guides and a chat function will be embedded in the Centre for Coastal Communities' website.