Seaside towns and cities dominate the list of areas with the highest numbers of people getting into serious difficulties with debt, according to new figures.
Scarborough, the largest resort on the Yorkshire coast, ranked second out of 347 local authorities in England and Wales for personal insolvencies, while Torbay in Devon – which includes the town of Torquay – came third, said the accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young.
Plymouth, on the south coast of Devon, was ranked fourth, while Blackpool was in sixth place.
However, it was the city of Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands which had the highest rate of personal insolvencies, recording just over 51 per 10,000 adults in 2018. The national average was 25, said the firm.
The insolvency rate includes personal bankruptcies, debt relief orders and individual voluntary arrangements.
UHY Hacker Young said the data suggested many of the locations “are still a long way from recovering from the decades of contraction in their traditional coastal industries such as tourism, shipbuilding and fishing”.
It added that the slump in sterling and the resulting rise in the numbers of people taking staycation holidays had apparently had little tangible impact on traditional holiday destinations such as Scarborough and Blackpool.
Scarborough had 47.8 insolvencies per 10,000 adults, while Torbay had 45.7, and Plymouth had 45.2.
Other coastal locations or regions featured in the firm’s “top 20” included Weymouth and Portland in Dorset, which includes the resort of Weymouth, which was in 12th place (39.6 insolvencies per 10,000 adults); the Isle of Wight, in 13th place (39.3 per 10,000); Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, in 14th place (39.2 per 10,000); Cornwall, in 17th place (38.5 per 10,000); and Hastings in East Sussex, in 19th place (38 per 10,000).
The accountancy firm said many coastal towns outside south-east England had struggled to replace their traditional industries with faster growth sectors such as financial services and technology.
A number of the locations named in the survey, including Scarborough, Blackpool, Plymouth, Great Yarmouth, Ryde on the Isle of Wight and Hastings, are among 69 English towns and cities that will benefit from a £95m regeneration fund announced by the government in September 2019.
