Seaside Special...

Piers are a favourite of mine.
Below are some images of (and from) Southwold Pier
Hunstanton, which is the nearest town to where I live, had a pier until the 1970s when bad weather swept away much of the structure which had been damaged by fire several times.
There is now an entertainment centre which itself is a rebuild from a structure which was burned down in 2002. Some images of the FIRE HERE. There is also a list of the various towns which have LOST THEIR PIERS here.

Here is an early image of the town with pier from the TOWN COUNCIL website.

For me, a pier would really bring a focal point into the town, but I understand that it's not popular with everyone. My 'local' paper: the Lynn News has a long running correspondence going on in the readers' letters page. There are plans for a marina development for the town as well, in association with Searles Resort, which has a population greater than Hunstanton during the summer months...

BURA is the British Urban Regneration Association.
The BURA scheme was aimed at designing piers for the 21st Century and a competition is ongoing.

There were a selection of images of some of the designs on this BBC PAGE.

This then led me to a series of events which were held in locations such as Scarborough.
At this event, there were a number of presentations which are very useful for Geographers.
The SCARBOROUGH presentations, including a useful one on Blackpool's regeneration can be viewed by following the link.

and on a completely unrelated topic, the Guardian's G2 supplement has a major article today on the emerging GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS.