We love Blackpool - every area has issues but do they have what we've got?
The “most recent official data” reports seem to come around with monotonous regularity - and Blackpool is always there near the top.
And here it is again, in stark black an white - the recent English Indices of Deprivation 2025 shows Blackpool as the most deprived local authority area overall.
The same partner in crime is back - a little coastal village in Essex - Jaywick - has again topped the table as the single most deprived neighbourhood in England, bizarrely highlighted by the fact that Reform Uk leader Nigel Farage turns out to be the MP there.
National attention is brought to bear on the fact that Blackpool - which also happens to be the nation’s number one seaside resort with an average of more than 20 million tourists every year - has SEVEN of the most deprived areas.
Blackpool is an easy target for lurid reports about deprivation, the contrast between the iconic tourist images and the run-down former hotels, poor housing and low life expectancy proving an irresistible magnet for bad news.
The resort has even been branded 'Crackpool' after it emerged as the most drug-blighted town in England and Wales, with 128 drug-related deaths between 2022 and 2024.
But some of the town’s residents are happy to call it home, despite the negative publicity.
“Every town has its good and bad, no matter where you live,” says Cllr Julie Sloman, a Conservative councillor for Norbreck who has lived on the Fyde coast all her life.
“Yes there are some really deprived areas that do need investment - a lot of housing in some of those areas in the centre of Blackpool need knocking down and rebuilt from scratch.
“It’s easy to knock Blackpool and I also feel winded when these reports come up - but there’s a lot of good things going on here, not just the famous attractions - and they deserve to be highlighted - but brilliant work going on in the communities, with people pulling together.
“Blackpool has a lot of spirit but that side of things is rarely highlighted. And we have the seaside, which a lot of places don’t. You have to have check and balances.”
Blackpool man David Mowbray of Arnold Avenue, South Shore, sees the town in a different light to the gloomy reports.
He said: “Yes, there is deprivation here, you can’t hide it under the carpet, but there are areas like that all over the country and they don’t have what Blackpool has.
“I come from Oldham which has similar issues and it has its good sides too - but look what Blackpool has got.
“You have the beaches and the sea, which we’re so lucky to have, and there is always something going on here, you cannot say it is dull!
“The people here, in my experience, are really friendly. I definitely made the right move coming here. Sometimes it takes an outsider’s view to get a fresh look at what a place is like.”
Civil servant Alan Jackson, 49, of Devonshire Road, has lived in Blackpool 17 years and came to the town from Coventry.
He says: “Let’s be honest, anyone who knows Blackpool well is not going to be surprised by the fact that it’s way up there on these lists.
“We do have a shocking town centre, for what is supposed to be the number one resort. We have areas that need pulling down, people who are poor and ill.
“The thing about Blackpool, though, is that it’s really got so much more, if you take in what’s around you. Me and my wife always do “Ride the Lights' and 'Walk the Lights'. It's become a tradition with us and we love it.
" Every October we get fish and chips at Bellamy’s Fish bar on Red Bank Road in Bispham and walk along the Illuminatons. Yes, they are always the same tableaux but it doesn’t matter!
“I always take the bike along the seafront, I see North Pier stretching out and the miles of sand and smell the sea air and I think how lucky I am. You would not get that in a lot of places, it’s really therepetic.
“I see a lot of investment coming here, millions of pounds - the multiversity and what the council is trying to do near the old Bonny Street police station.
“It kind of annoys me when they pick on Blackpool, I grew up in the West Midlands and you should see the problems they have - a lot of those people would give their right arm to live in Blackpool, believe me.”