HAVING Butlins in Minehead may be partly to blame for the lack of local social mobility in the local area, according to the town’s MP.
The former West Somerset area ranks at the bottom of the government’s social mobility index – meaning children who grow up there have the lowest chance in the UK of doing well at school and getting well-paid jobs.
Tiverton and Minehead MP Rachel Gilmour has been lobbying the government to increase funding for local schools and pushing for greater investment in Somerset’s coastal towns to create jobs – including through the possible creation of a tidal lagoon between Minehead and Watchet.
But at a recent Q&A event, the Liberal Democrat MP appeared to suggest that Butlins’ presence in Minehead was partially responsible for the town’s social mobility woes, arguing that the town should be seeking to pull in different kinds of tourists.
She clarified later at the same event that she bore no personal ill will towards the company, describing it as “a tremendous asset” for the town.
Mrs Gilmour made her comments at an event organised by the Watchet Coastal Community Team at the East Quay venue on January 17, during a wider discussion about the town’s cultural and historical offer.
She said: “This part of Somerset has a very rich cultural history, and I really want us to use that as a background and a backdrop to our tourism.
“Although Butlins is a tremendous asset in Minehead, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword, because it’s not what we call high-end tourism.
“What I’d like to develop, for all sorts of reasons, is a sort of niche, high net-worth tourism – we need to start attracting the Americans and the Germans, those are the people that spend the most money.”
Mrs Gilmour said she was happy to have Butlins providing local employment, but opined that its presence may play a part in deterring young people from staying in education and thereby getting higher-paid work further down the line.
She explained: “Butlins is fine, but I want to think big and aspirational.
“Minehead is the worst place in the country for social mobility, and one of the reasons for that is the schools.
“Although they’re trying their best, the children’s academic attainment at the schools in Minehead is two-and-a-half years behind children in an inner London comprehensive.
“One of the two-edged sword aspects about Butlins is that there’s very little incentive to think: ‘Actually, I’m really going to knuckle down, I’m going to get those nine GCSEs with top grades, and then I’m going to go to a sixth form college’ – because we don’t have one in the constituency.
“Instead people think: “I can go and earn £8.25 an hour in Butlins, so why should I have to work for my GCSEs?’ – and that has a real impact on social mobility. It has a real impact on aspiration.”
Mrs Gilmour said that Minehead and Watchet’s tourism offer could be boosted by learning from the experiences of other coastal towns, particularly when it came to providing car parking and easy access to local attractions.
She said: “If you look at towns like Lyme Regis, Clovelly and Mevagissey, when they’ve been thinking about how they attract their tourists, they put a car park at the top and the tourists are drawn down.
“It’s almost as if you’re sort of looking from a pigeon’s eye [view] – they can’t wait to get down there and spend significant money on whatever you’ve got to offer.