Hartlepool: the coalface of change

Read the full report Hartlepool: the coalface of change

“With Hartlepool, it's a place where you're either going to it or you're not going to it. You don't really drive through Hartlepool. So, you're either here or you're not.”

These words struck me as oddly profound as they were spoken by Harrison Smith, a young man who runs his own financial consultancy business out of an old mansion house in the south end of town.

I was reminded of these words during the final thing that happened to me in Hartlepool, at the station, looking to return to London after having interviewed dozens of people in the Teeside town. At the railway café, I ordered a ham sandwich and a cup of tea. After I had done so, I noticed that the café only took cash, no cards. I panicked a little and looked in my pockets for all the change I had. The sandwich and tea came to £4.80, and I only had £4 on me, having spent the rest of the cash I had on a lousy kebab the previous evening.

“I'm so sorry about this,” I said, ‘But it turns out I don't have enough for both the sandwich and the tea. Don't worry about the tea then.'

“No, no,” she said. “Just give me the four pound and you can have the tea.” As she said this, a look of immeasurable charity appeared across her face. She'd seen it all before, many times. Someone a little short of the price of a cup of tea. It's what keeps places like Hartlepool together, these little acts of kindness.

Hartlepool: The Coalface of change takes a deep dive into a coastal community with comparisons made with two other coastal communities, Cromer and Redcar.

Hartlepool was an interesting area of study due to the long history of the town, some of the atypical aspects of it as a coastal community (while still facing several of the most common issues facing towns by the sea in Britain), and how interesting the place is in a political context.

Having been a Labour held seat essentially since 1964 (when it was known as “The Hartlepools”), the Conservative party won the seat in 2021 by-election – yet it is once again a Labour seat. Redcar, which is only twelve miles away, offers an interesting insight into the similarities and differences we see there as compared to Hartlepool, in addition to being politically interesting in and of itself: it is one of the few seats in Britain to have had a Labour, Lib Dem and Tory MP within the last twenty years.

Despite persisting for decades, the UK's coastal communities problem can be solved. We simply need to look at it in the right way. Hartlepool, Redcar, Cromer and many more places like them are bursting with talent. It's just that not enough people care to look for it. To paraphrase what someone once told me, you're either there, or you're not.

Read the full report Hartlepool: the coalface of change