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Beside the digital seaside

  • by JW

From cafes and bars, cranes and hard hats as traditional indicators of regeneration … to digital hub.

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We need to be inventive when it comes to ‘regeneration’:

Reviving seaside towns with a little imagination – Vision Group for Sidmouth

And one route is to be digitally creative:

Digital and creative now dominate the economy – Vision Group for Sidmouth

Six years ago, as reported in the Guardian, Bournemouth was definitely thinking outside its rather sad and staid box:

Forget Silicon Valley, Bournemouth has found its mood

It’s not just football that has put the seaside town back on the map. It wants to be a digital global hub too

Beyond the cafes and bars, cranes and hard hats that are the traditional indicators of regeneration, a greater force is at work in Bournemouth. Matt Desmier runs the annual Silicon Beach gathering, the focal point for the town’s ambitions to be not just one of the leading digital hubs in the country, but in the world, boosted by a Tech Nation report this year naming Bournemouth as the UK’s fastest-growing city in the digital economy. “The council has a vision to be one of the top 20 global digital hubs by 2020,” he says. “That’s wildly ambitious but, you know what? Shoot for the moon.”

Forget Silicon Valley, Bournemouth has found its mojo | Digital Britain | The Guardian

This week, the Telegraph picks up how things have progressed since then:

(19) Telegraph Travel on Twitter: “📍Once a retirement town cruelly labelled ‘God’s waiting room’, this coastal resort has become the UK’s fastest growing digital economy. How did Bournemouth become ‘Britain’s Santa Monica’? Thread ~👇 https://t.co/11uYswRWaJ https://t.co/Ahacy8LWuq” / Twitter

With the piece here too:

How Bournemouth became ‘Britain’s Santa Monica’ – News Chant UK