The birth of the Boscombehub

One of my interviews was undertaken with Sorted Surf Festival manager Brad Predley, at the Sorted Surf Shop on Boscombe beach. The regeneration to the area is pretty spectacular, with restaurants right on the foot of the beach and surfers galore on the Artificial Surf Reef. It seemed a whole different word away from the previous research I had conducted in town. I found myself researching into the divides between regenerated communities and the pre-regeneration residents, and nothing seemed so apparent to me as this obvious community divide. With the wealthy coming down to enjoy their beach pods on Boscombe beach as the community feels the recession pinch, there’s no wonder that the Boscombe Regeneration Project hadn’t had a positive impact on ‘their’ Boscombe.

It highlighted to me that can and should be events the integration of these two communities. The Sorted Surf Festival clearly does this well by hosting a free event day that appeals to all markets from families, to surfers, to teenagers, and adults coming to see activities going on.

And not just summer events, events held throughout the seasons. I was shocked to learn that Boscombe doesn’t have its own Christmas lights parade or an event to that effect. These sort of events are what my childhood was made up of, wrapping up warm and watching Santa in the parade. Or even going with your school and displaying your Christmas arts and crafts in the town.  If I was to implement events in Boscombe, it’s would be events to this effect as I believe these types of events that encourage community spirit in a town.

Even despite the lack of events, there was no solid marketing base for events to market themselves on. This issue seemed more apparent to me than the lack of events. Even if event were implemented in Boscombe, there would be nowhere to specifically market them to both the local community and potential tourists. To me the case study had to fix the root of the problem first so create a base line for a successful events industry. Here arose the ‘Boscombehub’.

Boscombe Regeneration Project Research- Community voice

One of the most obvious problems I faced when data gathering for my questionnaires, is that it was apparent that the residents of Boscombe didn’t want to be involved in my research. I was very careful of how I worded my questions to ensure I wasn’t going to offend any Boscombe residents, with questions such as ‘why wouldn’t you attend any events in Boscombe,’ but if I’m honest, I was looking to see if the negative stigma of Boscombe still hung despite the efforts of the regeneration. It ended up that the majority of respondents were obvious to my sly question any because the most replied that it was because they hadn’t heard of any anyway!

Something I really enjoyed from analysing my questionnaire findings was the unpredicted responses I would read. Despite researching the Boscombe Regeneration Project inside and out, and preparing myself for a whole array of opinions from the public, I still found some responses surprising. If I was to predict the data I was going to analyse, I would have guessed that Boscombe residents would have said that the Boscombe Regeneration Project has had a positive impact on their area, and the outer communities would say it had no effect and refuse to change their stereotypes of Boscombe.

In fact it was Boscombe residents who felt the scheme had had no positive impact on their community. I guess you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

The most shocking aspect of my research was asking people in Boscombe high street of their opinions of events and activities taking place in Boscombe. One guy was answering my question when a boy came over and asked me what I was doing. I told him and out of my own curiosity, asked the boy as a teenager living in the area. Despite the boy not being over 18, so I technically shouldn’t have included him in my research, I found his response so raw and shocking that I wanted to show in my case study what it’s really like living there,

‘Its the dregs.. f*** all goes on here. You go out with your mates and get out of it then feel like sh** the next day at school’ [Anonymous 13 year old].

It emphasised to me what a shame it was that the Boscombe Regeneration Project has missed its events and activities project aims. Events and activities would help get boys like him off the street and positively engaging within the community.

This is when my first report interview went straight to the Boscombe Regeneration Partnership. I asked them whether they feel the events and activities project aims were being met. The reply from Cat McMillian was, in my opinion, fairly blunt and quite defensive. She seemed to back up her argument that events were going on in the area (pub nights- not so great for teenagers), and markets (great for the over 40’s), but nothing major happening for the community or tourist interest. All this made me want to do it push on with the case study and prove that an events industry is needed to regain a sense of community pride to the area.

What inspired me to choose my case study route

At first when I began my case study module research on the Boscombe Regeneration Project, I felt I had bitten more than I could chew. I wanted to research into the events industry (or lack of!) in Boscombe since the Boscombe Regeneration Project. As one of the Boscombe Regeneration Projects key aims was for ‘nurturing creative industries’ and implementing and ‘events and activities’ hub for Bournemouth, I couldn’t quite get my head round why there were no events.

As I have always lived at maximum twenty minutes from Boscombe, I have always been aware of its reputation. Despite statistics showing that Boscombe is, to be honest, a pretty god awful area, I have however always had a couple of friends who live there and its reputation appears to be worse than its reality.  Therefore when I decided to embark on this case study, I felt that I would obviously be completely factual with all my data, but also give Boscombe a chance.

Mark Cribb is one of my references within the essay. Mark and his wife renovated a beaten down hotel in Boscombe, in a bid to try and bring up the area in the shadow of the Boscombe Regeneration Project. They later, on the success of the Urban Reef Hotel, opened up Urban Beach Restaurant on Boscombe beach. Through my research I learnt that they had a little literature in each room, ‘We know that the Urban Beach is not perfect yet, but we have been frantically renovating since January 2006. We are … just a couple in our early thirties who have borrowed more money than we can afford and will invest every penny back into the business until it is finished.’

Not only does this inspire me in itself, but upon further research I realised that they weren’t just renovating a hotel and building a restaurant. Mark Cribb is heavily involved in the regeneration of Boscombe. He has a vision for Boscombe, he wants to inspire change for the people that live there, so not only was the investment for himself and his wife, but he wanted to help make a difference. It was this research that inspired me to not give up on my case study on the ‘events industry in Boscombe’, because there wasn’t one. But re direct the research on what effect an events industry would have for the community of Boscombe, and whether I myself could do my part in researching if events could help change the lives of people who live there.