Public-led shared workspaces and the intangible factors of urban regeneration in UK coastal towns

ABSTRACT

Recent studies suggest that policies designed to create new shared workspaces have the power to deliver skills, innovation and new employment opportunities to peripheral areas and lagging economies. We examine this idea using case studies from two British coastal locations and industrial ports of different sizes and governance structures: Portsmouth (Hampshire) and Newhaven (East Sussex). Our findings indicate the need for integrated place-based solutions that are targeted and anchored in the local needs and identities of the place. Governmental frameworks should not only address the physical aspects of regeneration but also the social and institutional ones. Positive externalities are registered when shared workspaces act as social infrastructure. For this to happen, regeneration policy needs to work on community building, regaining local trust and nurturing positive local identities and imaginaries. Finally, we note that fragmented institutional patterns hamper the scaling up of positive externalities at the wider regional scale.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban regeneration
• coastal towns
• local employment
• new workspaces
• co-working
• social infrastructure

1. Introduction

The provision of shared workspaces of different kinds has become a widespread practice for supporting regeneration and new job creation in a variety of geographical contexts, from successful cities (Zukin, 2021) to more stagnating economies (Fiorentino, 2019). The associated entrepreneurial ecosystems are increasingly seen as a way to foster new employment opportunities and the revitalisation of urban areas with low capital implications. However, several questions remain on the effectiveness of this approach in more peripheral areas. Can shared workspaces facilitate new employment opportunities in marginal geographies as in big urban areas? What are the factors to be considered? In our notion of peripherality, we consider both the spatial and economic implications of marginality looking at the coast and at locations where some longstanding socio-economic issues have eroded the local capacity to attract business and investment.

The article uses two coastal and post-industrial coastal locations in England to assess the value and efficiency of regeneration practices based on the provision of new working spaces in marginal geographies. We look at Portsmouth and Newhaven on the South coast of the UK (see Figure 1). Whilst the two case studies differ in size, population, educational offer (Portsmouth can count on a local university) and governance structures, they have similarities in the levels of persistent multiple deprivations they face (DLUHC, 2019; MHCLG, 2019). Both have decided to provide shared workspaces – through different strategies – to promote new local entrepreneurial ventures, with the hopes of also repairing the local socio-economic fabric.

Figure 1. The maps show the location, levels, and distribution of the index multiple deprivations for both our case studies: Newhaven within the boundaries of Lewes District Council, and Portsmouth city Council (image reworked by the author from dr Alasdair Rae for MHCLG, 2019).

We seek to understand the most adequate delivery mechanisms for publicly supported shared workspaces, and the differences with main urban areas in supporting employment opportunities. The discussion on the provision of shared workspaces outside the mainstream geographies is here re-connected with the narrative on ‘left-behind’ places as we discuss the need for coordinated tangible and intangible policy interventions when approaching regeneration strategies in peripheral geographies, recognising the essential need for high levels of social infrastructure.

2. The urban versus the peripheral: a tale of two shared workspace models

The co-working space concept is by now mainstream. In the last decade, there has been a boom in the literature and even Wikipedia has now a dedicated page in most languages. The literature from economics, business and management studies reconnects the narrative on coworking spaces with that on entrepreneurial ecosystems and an increasingly knowledge-intensive and digitalised economy (Howell, 2022; Wolf-Powers et al., 2017). Well-known studies have disentangled the values of these new workspaces in supporting new local entrepreneurialism (Gertner & Mack, 2017), enhancing social networks (Merkel, 2015), and generating knowledge spillovers (Akhavan et al., 2018). Directly connected are a range of policy frameworks targeting entrepreneurial ecosystems, innovation, and the digital service sector, with different types of support strategies to foster their growth in cities (Mack & Mayer, 2016). The connections between shared workspaces and local universities are also recognised as important players in generating new employment opportunities, education, and skills development (Kiro & Artto, 2015; Malecki, 2018). Other studies have been dedicated to building a taxonomy of the different types of shared spaces (Fiorentino, 2019; Orel & Bennis, 2021), highlighting the differences in their operating models, the types of firms and activities clustered within them and their inwards and outwards interactions (Coll-Martinez & Mendez-Ortega, 2023). Among the planning literature, the locational patterns and type of premises used, the institutional involvement and effects on the surrounding built environment have been typical debates explored (DiMarino et al., 2023; Mariotti et al., 2023). All in all, it has emerged quite clearly that shared workspaces of different types have the potential of supporting socio-economic regeneration processes in different ways.

The direct and indirect effects on local economies triggered by coworking spaces can be very different according to the type of geography and level of urbanisation. In contexts like Europe and the US, the role of coworking spaces as enablers of urban regeneration processes in bigger cities is by now well established (Ciaramella & Dall’orso, 2021). In prime real estate markets, the innovation complex brought by coworking spaces may also induce negative externalities like higher housing and office prices and processes of residential or commercial gentrification (Zukin, 2021). In more stagnating economies, positive impacts (e.g. taming social inequalities and re-instilling local economic development) outweigh the potential negatives (Fiorentino, 2019).

The story of shared workspaces is different in peripheral areas, where it stands as an emerging debate. Scholars have highlighted the crucial intangible factors – or the entrepreneurial networking opportunities – delivered by coworking spaces in sparse regions, i.e. moral, emotional, professional, and financial support, office facilities, IT, and infrastructure (Fuzi, 2015). Merrel et al. (2021) explored the impacts of co-working hubs on local well-being, by strengthening the sense of community and improving professionals’ mental health, work/life balance and general living conditions. On the topic of enhanced well-being, Mariotti et al. (2023) found a further correlation between the successful establishment of shared workspaces and enhanced economic viability and liveability at the local scale. Outside the usual urban cores, Jamal (2018) looked at mid-sized cities in Canada and demonstrated that coworking spaces drove economic innovation much more than large businesses could have ever done, by acting as soft infrastructure for community building, and therefore indirectly triggering the revitalisation of their town centres and local economies. Equally, in some shrinking cities, co-working spaces have been identified as drivers of future market development and therefore of resilience among the local communities and real estate sectors (Kiviaho & Toivonen, 2023).

The contextual variables, delivery mechanisms, implementation dynamics, as well as potential benefits arising from these workspaces could be completely different between major urban locations and marginal geographies. The story becomes more challenging when peripheral locations also present stagnating economies or are ‘left-behind’. In these locations, the engagement of the public sector is crucial – both financially and institutionally – to enable shared workspaces to settle and their regenerative effects to be unlocked (Knapp & Sawy, 2021). The literature on co-workings in marginal geographies has seen a revamp in post-Covid scenarios, building up on debates on new hybrid working patterns, office relocations, and pandemic-induced migration patterns potentially inducing new opportunities for local employment outside the traditional centres (Akhavan et al., 2018). But it still falls short to address the way by which public agencies should be involved in delivering, operating, or supporting shared workspaces. This article contributes to bridging this gap by looking at two coastal locations in the UK – presenting different levels of deprivation and different contextual situations – that have experimented with policy for the delivery of shared workspaces as a key strategy to revamp local employment opportunities.

3. Social bonds and other intangible factors for regeneration creating resilient post-globalisation communities

The differentiated effects of co-working spaces in urban or peripheral locations reflect the widening urban/rural gap that has emerged post-globalisation. Economic development, productivity and innovation are increasingly polarized in large urban areas (Rodriguez-Pose & Crescenzi, 2008). Whereas peripheral locations face issues like population drains, income inequalities, differences in quality of life and voting patterns (Shucksmith et al., 2009). As a consequence, a well-known body of literature has emerged, investigating the geographies ‘left-behind’ by globalisation (The Economist, 2017). In the UK, these places are characterised by low levels of residential mobility, due to some strong ‘community and civic bonds that provided a strong sense of belonging’ (Tomaney & Pike, 2021, p. 43). This enduring local attachment was however coupled with economic decline, the loss of jobs in traditional industries and outmigration. The erosion of local taxpayers has then limited access to and the provision of essential welfare services including social infrastructure and health care facilities, which has further impacted firm retention and attraction.

While speculating possible solutions, scholars have argued for a stark need to re-constructing social infrastructure and community bonds in these geographies. Social infrastructure as defined by Klinenberg (2018) is vital for small businesses; it fosters an environment where they can thrive, and it helps anchor them locally and create a sustainable ecosystem of innovation (Butler Flora & Flora, 1993). Recent literature assessing economic development in rural areas points to the need for radical social innovation solutions aimed at ‘reconfiguring attitudes’ (or people’s motivations), networks and governance in association with typical physical interventions for socio-economic regeneration (Vercher et al., 2023). For example, bridging the digital divide between urban and rural locations might also support the creation of a ‘smart countryside’ where new employment and social inclusion opportunities could be given by teleworking and digital services (Bosworth et al., 2023).

Reflecting the complex interdependences affecting marginal geographies, new regeneration strategies are also called to address feelings of local neglect and create a new sense of belonging (MacKinnon et al., 2022). However, the extant literature on left-behind geographies has mostly focussed on typical rural locations or mining regions (e.g. McCann, 2016; Tomaney et al., 2019). Less developed is the coastal dimension of such post-industrial decline. In coastal locations, the marine landscape is interlinked with the local identity, and it has a direct impact on the social and physical provision of employment opportunities (Simpson et al., 2022).

The civic bonds and the strong coastal identity that was provided by the original – and now declining – coastal economic activities have often transformed into negative territorial stigma, rather than into properly valued cultural heritage (Nayak, 2019). Many of these peripheral geographies have become places for young people to ‘get out of’ or flee to the ‘next big urban centre’ to be successful in life and escape unemployment (Garcia-Lorenzo et al., 2022) and marginalisation (Wenham, 2020). The narrative has in recent years been reinforced by the connotations used both by the media and by the various policy frameworks, including the recent Levelling -Up agenda. At the time of the data collection, UK coastal towns frequently featured in the news concerning rates of deprivation (B.B.C., 2019a), socio-economic struggles (FT, 2017), housing inequalities (FT, 2019), low educational attainment and the lack of good local employment opportunities (B.B.C., 2019b), flooding risks and coastal erosion (FT, 2020) or the impacts of Brexit on fishing, trade, and the coastal labour pool (The Guardian, 2019). The COVID-19 emergency revived interest in coastal communities and their struggles (The Observer, 2020). More recently, Bunting (2023) has referred to the British coast as a ‘salt fringe’ recalling the American story of the ‘rust belt’. All narratives contribute to further negative connotations.

In marginal geographies, policymakers are called to adopt more holistic approaches to regeneration, stimulating new employment opportunities while also bringing social innovation. A series of intangible factors impact quite severely on the success rate of measures to successfully stimulate new employment. Yet they remain sparsely addressed by the existing literature. In this article, we address the gap trying to disentangle coastal specificities and the potential role of shared workspaces in lifting the local coastal imaginaries.

4. The borderline situation of the British coastline: how do we tackle it?

The decline of British seaside towns and the worsening living conditions experienced by coastal communities are longstanding issues in the unequal history of regional development of the country. Following the effects of globalisation and the decline of typical coastal economic activities, from manufacturing to tourism, fishing and naval activity, coastal communities saw their economic prospects dwindle and for the most part not recover. Traditional literature tends to focus on Victorian resort towns (McDowell & Bonner-Thompson, 2020; Walton, 1981), with less attention towards the history of coastal deindustrialisation. Seminal work by Beatty and Fothergill (2004) highlighted the fundamental issues of labour pooling and seasonal economic structure, criticising the central government for its scant attention to these communities.

Coastal cities like Portsmouth, Southampton, and Blackpool have retained persistent levels of poverty between 2015 and 2019, with numerous small areas¹ remaining in the top 10% of most deprived areas in England.² Here a ‘nested deprivation’ exists, or significant pockets of deprivation, due to a disconnection from the job market, feelings of social isolation, and a sense of powerlessness towards institutional authorities (Boswell et al., 2022). In smaller towns, coastal employees are among the worst paid in the country and the ones offered fewer opportunities (ONS, 2020). Complicating this for coastal cities and towns is their unique geography, dictating the limited accessibility and connectivity by the rail or road networks and a limited catchment area for businesses (House of Lords, 2019), and the additional impacts of climate change, posing significant threats both territorially and financially, due to mitigation and adaptation costs (Sayers et al., 2022). After COVID-19 coastal towns received even wider media coverage due to the poor access to health care registered over the coast despite the growing ageing population (DHSC, 2021).

On the policy side, not much has happened since a 2008 benchmarking study by the Department of Communities and Local Government (Beatty & Fothergill, 2004), with additional negative impacts generated by both Brexit and Covid-19. Under Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, this lack of progress prompted an investigation by a House of Lords Select Committee and its report ‘The Future of Seaside Towns’. Here the connotation of ‘seaside town’ was extended to larger cities like Portsmouth or Blackpool, mainly looking at coastal communities experiencing de-industrialisation and poverty, and locations requiring regeneration. The report highlights the value of regional innovation policies supporting investments in the digital sector for wider accessibility of services and jobs, a good provision of affordable workspaces, and the uplift of local skills by providing training programs for start-ups (House of Lords, 2019). The Government responded to the Select Committee’s report in 2021, acknowledging its findings, but failed to fully justify the lack of tailored approaches to address coastal communities’ needs. A revamp of the Committee and further governmental actions are still under discussion at the time of writing.

In terms of funding, the existing interventions have been set complying with the more generic idea of ‘Levelling Up’ inequalities and tackling deprivation rates, rather than focusing on coastal communities specifically. A dedicated ‘Coastal Communities Fund’ existed between 2015 and 2019, then replaced by more recent and less specific policies including ‘Town Deals’ and the ‘Future High Streets fund’. Post Brexit, the Government announced its highly criticised ‘Freeport’ scheme for clusters of coastal areas pushing a more centralised notion of regeneration (Tomaney & Pike, 2021). Since July 2022, most funding frameworks have converged into a single and even broader ‘Levelling Up Fund’, largely criticised for its lack of specificity and geographical focus. As we write, after several changes in Government, the whole ‘Levelling Up’ agenda might be about to disappear.

The second longstanding coastal issue refers to territorial governance. Regional authorities (and the related strategic plans) were abolished because of austerity cuts following the 2011 Localism Act, exacerbating disaffection in some places (De Ruyter et al., 2021). A series of ‘soft spaces’ of governance have emerged (e.g. the Local Enterprise Partnerships – LEP), whose non-statutory nature makes coordination of common goals and the reconciliation of competing coastal interests quite difficult (Haughton et al., 2013). This institutional fragmentation has created a lack of institutional capacity in dealing with coastal challenges (Nurse & Sykes, 2020). Over the past decades, several third-sector organisations have tried to fill the gap left by hard institutions, drawing attention to the issue, with limited means and no directly measurable successes (e.g. Local Trust, Big Lottery Fund, New Economics Foundation, the Salvation Army, etc.).

All the reviewed challenges require innovative approaches to regeneration and place-based policy to stimulate new employment and the creation of better jobs locally. Therefore, many local authorities, including the two analysed case studies, have seen in shared workspaces an opportunity for supporting the retention of skilled jobs and new businesses. Can shared workspaces be the solution to a wider longstanding socio-economic problem? If so, how?

5. Methodology and case studies

This research originates as a spin-off from a major piece of research on co-working spaces and their role in fostering the process of urban regeneration (Fiorentino, 2019). In this article, we assess whether co-working spaces could offer benefits to marginal geographies. From a policy perspective, we investigate the most suitable tools and operation mechanisms for the delivery of public shared workspaces aiming to kick-start new employment opportunities (or to enhance local entrepreneurial activities).

This research investigates the case of two coastal communities on the South coast of England (Portsmouth and Newhaven). They differ significantly in terms of size, governing structure, and local institutions, but both have experienced some kind of long-term and persistent decline. Both locations have experimented with the delivery of shared workspaces using different types of institutional support. By comparing the two cases we reflect on the role played by the institutions, the governance structures involved and the dependent contextual variables for the success of such spaces in fostering better socio-economic conditions for coastal communities.

The adopted qualitative case study approach allowed to obtain a combination of different narratives and to provide context-specific knowledge of the local issues and needs (Braun & Clarke, 2019; Flyvbjerg, 2006). Our methodology entailed an initial policy review of planning and economic development documents to gain an overview of the stated policy objectives in each community. A total of 55 policy documents were systematically reviewed (13 for Portsmouth and 42 for Newhaven) covering a period from 2012 to 2021. The staggering number of policy documents and institutional studies commissioned for Newhaven reflects the more complex tiers of governance but also a series of failed regeneration attempts.

Based on this background, a series of 10 extensive semi-structured interviews (60–90 minutes, between November 2020 and April 2021) was then conducted with key planning and institutional stakeholders (across the various tiers of planning) and workspace managers in both locations. Respondents were recruited through a snowball sampling process until sample saturation was reached (Biernacki & Waldorf, 1981). The interviewed participants covered all the stakeholders involved in the delivery and central management of public shared workspaces in both locations (see Table 1). While the community benefits and perspectives within shared workspaces have already been investigated by the literature (e.g. Akhavan et al., 2018; Capdevila, 2023; Merkel, 2015), the choice of leading a policy review associated to in-depth interviews with politicians, civil servants or officers directly involved with existing workspace initiatives was coherent with the key drivers of the project. The latter aimed at understanding key opportunities and limitations in the delivery mechanisms available for the delivery of public-led shared workspaces and any constraints offered by the current regulatory framework in more marginal geographies. The interviews mainly served the objective of understanding the local perceptions and the main aims motivating the decision to set up shared workspaces. The thematic analysis of the interviews’ contents has shed light on the perception and efficiency of policy frameworks to stimulate new employment, to understand the local perspectives on the delivery of shared workspaces and any unmet needs or policy gaps. Common themes emerged in the analysis included issues like ‘lack of cooperation among the various institutions’, ‘governance loopholes’, ‘challenges in the operation and delivery of the workspaces’, ‘local socio-economic issues and deprivation’, ‘local trust development’ and ‘competing local interests’.

Table 1. List of interviewees and their roles.

CODE	ROLE OF INTERVIEWEE
Int 01	University of Portsmouth, entrepreneurship professor
Int 02	University of Portsmouth, enterprise centres manager
Int 03	Lewes District Council, former elected councillor
Int 04	Portsmouth City Council, planning officer
Int 05	University of Portsmouth, workspace employee
Int 06	Portsmouth City Council, officer/manager of shared working spaces
Int 07	Solent LEP, officer
Int 08	Lewes District Council, planning officer
Int 09	Newhaven Enterprise Zone, officer
Int 10	Newhaven Town Council, officer

6. Comparing two coastal locations

Portsmouth and Newhaven offer an interesting opportunity for a comparative study. Both port locations are marked by pockets of deprivation and high unemployment rates (Figure 1), and both are experimenting with strategies to deliver public-led shared workspaces to support local employment and regeneration. However, the two locations also differ in size, history, economic development trajectory, and planning structures.

Portsmouth (208,100 inhabitants) is a Unitary Authority and therefore holds strategic planning powers, it is bigger and more densely populated than Newhaven (12,200 inhabitants), with a stronger economic potential and a more successful regeneration history. The second busiest port in the UK and a naval base, Portsmouth has experienced a decline in its naval and ship-making industry following the partial dismissal of the navy activities. Due to its size, it hosts a somehow more diverse local economy. The city can count on the local presence of a live cultural industry, a sports industry cluster, a university, and a set of successful regeneration interventions over the waterfront area implemented in the early 2000s. Yet, it has struggled somewhat in retaining executives and higher-skilled workers to live in the city. In recent years, Portsmouth has seen a rise in the number of co-working spaces and initiatives to support a local entrepreneurial ecosystem including some private incubation spaces for start-ups and a set of public shared workspaces in partnership with Portsmouth City Council (PCC) and the University.

Conversely, Newhaven is at an earlier stage in the process and faces constraints in implementing regeneration strategies, mainly due to a lack of local investment, community cohesion and local attractions. Born as an industrial port and manufacturing centre it now suffers from typical post-industrial problems, like an unappealing town centre, high local deprivation rates, low educational attainment, and difficulty in retaining jobs and a young skilled labour force. The freight and passenger port ensures connections to Dieppe (France) three times a day. Unlike Portsmouth, the town is under a three-tier planning system,³ in addition to which an Enterprise Zone (EZ) has been created to stimulate economic regeneration and support the growth of local businesses. Given its morphology and current industrial landscape, tourism attraction is not the most straightforward answer to generate economic development and the uplift of local skills, so local institutions are exploring alternative strategies supporting spaces for start-ups and creative industries. The town also faces competition from neighbouring cities like Brighton, Lewes, and Seaford in terms of attracting higher-skilled jobs.

The two cases share the need to repurpose a certain post-industrial legacy – at different scales and utilising different amenities and institutional ties – trying to use shared workspaces but with very different results in terms of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ interventions and local institutional capacity.

7. The delivery of new working spaces to improve local employment opportunities

Both our case studies considered the re-use of derelict or under-utilized spaces converting them into co-working spaces to re-instill economic growth and trigger regeneration. The desired outcome was in both cases tackling problems of unemployment and poor education levels. But the measure of support, towards local shared workspaces and start-ups, did not evolve equally. Newhaven saw a series of failed attempts, both on public land and by commissioning either the entire project or its operation to third parties. Reasons for failure include a lack of investors, problems with land ownership and assembly, or failure to attract businesses. Whereas Portsmouth had a more successful story, with most local shared workspaces run by PCC (e.g. Hotwalls, Victory Business Centre, Portsmouth Enterprise Centre, Challenge Enterprise Centre and Portsgrove Enterprise Centre) and some others run by the local university and equipped by start-up incubation programmes (e.g. Cell Block Studios, Halpern House, Future Technology Centre and the Technopole building). This section highlights the key factors behind the two different experiences.

Some of Portsmouth’s success in delivering shared workspaces is associated with council ownership of commercial land; acquired either from the navy or from Hampshire County Council in the changeover from a local to a unitary authority in 1997 [Int06]. Int04 praised the singular situation of the city owning a vast stock of land, but also highlighted the work done to make the best use of the peculiar available spaces leveraging their unique identity:

’ … for a city of our size, we’ve got an awful lot of … [available] space … of all types, … old cells … in the historic dockyard converted into craft workshops; … old arches … down by the sea that are craft workshops; and then the basement of the guild hall in the Centre, … used that [for a] maker space called “Make a Guild”. … we’ve got an art gallery that’s got start-up space in it. … if you take Hotwalls, … we had a derelict area, … lots of arches in a very old wall around the seafront and it had been empty for years. We managed to get a bit of money from the lottery, to refurbish it, we drove the project and put some money in ourselves, and just converted it all. We still run it as a kind of easy-in and easy-out type space, [there is] a waiting list for it. It has been incredibly popular … a great location, … right in the old [heart of] Portsmouth’. [Int04]

Preserving these spaces was crucial to support commercial uses. As the second most densely populated area outside of London, Portsmouth has high housing demand and targets, which constricts all other land uses, including commercial ones. Int02 from the University’s enterprise centre has explained that priority is usually given to residential development schemes and that many old commercial spaces have over the years been converted into housing, with the displacement of jobs and enterprises out of Portsmouth. As a consequence, many of the wealthier households have also relocated to the outskirt of Portsmouth, fuelling pockets of inner-city deprivation [Int04]. Hence, the need to work on retaining employment, nurturing local enterprises, and adding shared workspaces to the local offering of infrastructure.

Efforts to support local enterprises in delivering new workspaces have been undertaken also in Newhaven, with very different results. For most local officers, affordability and availability of industrial premises are one of the main selling points of Newhaven (the average price of industrial land was referred to by Int09 as £5–6/sqft as compared to £15–16/sqft in the near Brighton). However, this widespread affordability is also counterproductive. Many businesses in one of the key sites from the EZ (the Avis Way industrial estate) have only located their warehouses and logistic spaces in Newhaven, leaving the other front-end businesses elsewhere in the region like in Brighton or Seaford. This serves to trap lower-skilled jobs and opportunities within Newhaven making the retention of higher-skilled employees much more difficult. Hence, the decision to support the creation of new workspaces within a wider regeneration strategy for the town.

Unfortunately, most projects to kick-start innovative projects including spaces for start-ups and creative firms stopped at very early stages. At the time of writing two projects are underway yet no publicly supported shared workspace is in operation in Newhaven. Local planners encountered a series of obstacles, with difficulties finding developers and investors and attracting interest from local businesses or potential users.

First, local interviewees [Int03; Int08; Int09; Int10] lamented a fragmented land ownership situation harming re-development projects.

‘The problem is that most of that land is in private ownership. So, our ability to influence [the type and speed] of development … is problematic. … with all the money in the world, if you can’t get your hands on that land, how can you create the employment floor space that’s needed for that growth?’ [Int09]

The situation is also worsened by the soil contamination levels that makes most of the publicly owned plots of land and all brownfield site quite costly to redevelop unless heavily subsidised to become viable [Int 08].

However, we found that the main difference between the two stories was in the planned space operation models. Portsmouth opted for the direct involvement of PCC in the operation and management of the spaces, whereas Newhaven lamented a lack of in-house capacity to do so and opted for outsourcing. PCC – that was better-equipped in terms of economic, managerial, and entrepreneurial skills – saw public-led shared workspaces as an apolitical measure to produce successful longer-term outcomes. Int06 explained the reasons behind the bold choice of direct management:

‘It’s all run and managed by the council. In the past, we have looked at … a third-party operator, but with the reviews … , [we’ve] always decided to keep it within the Council, for costs and service delivery reasons. […] all the expenses [are] borne by the Council and all the income goes to the Council; but we make a profit […] some of the money we have rolled over doing continuous improvements in the building […] But […] even if we broke even, we got wider benefits to look at, as the number of businesses we’re helping to start up and keep going the employment.[…] It is like a ripple effect […]for how many people we employ, they all live locally, they’re spending their money and helping local businesses and the local area, so all help out. We’ve got a social need, more than a financial need: we haven’t got to pay off the shareholders basically. […] and we’ve got events, so we can add-in our other services, such as the SME development, … a networking group once a month for small businesses’. [Int06]

The decision not to outsource the operation of spaces is essentially twofold: it aims at guaranteeing the stability and ultimate sustainability of the workspaces and it serves as a mechanism for community building. A community of local firms is, in fact, the most sought-after feature for entrepreneurs settling in a coastal shared workspace. For PCC, the prospect of retaining firms and reinvesting management fees into the community outweighed any potential gains from selling off the buildings [Int06; Int05].

Undoubtedly, the size of the local population and the presence of a local university were also additional factors working in favour of Portsmouth and its more successful story. The university contributed to activating the positive externalities generated by a classical triple helix model (Etzkowitz & Zhou, 2018). Int02 noted that the University of Portsmouth is a very business-oriented institution, mainly because it is incentivised through the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), it therefore has adopted as a key strategic aim to ’aid new and growing businesses through […] innovation spaces and business support programmes’. A good example of this vision is the local entrepreneurial network programme partnered by the University, which supports single working mothers from disadvantaged backgrounds [Int04]. During the pandemic, the containment measures forced some of the workspaces to temporarily close, so as a mutual support initiative the network used the temporarily out-of-service local pubs to meet and run their businesses.

In Newhaven, the factors motivating the delivery of new shared workspaces were similar: socio-economic deprivation, limited labour pooling and low education attainment. But the local public sector involvement was different as well as the contextual factors and the level of community trust. The less positive experience from this second case demonstrated that the delivery of physical measures – like new buildings for start-ups or new working spaces – is not a universal solution for stimulating new employment opportunities. Physical interventions need to be paired up with a series of other intangible measures addressing the local social factors driving the regeneration needs. Publicly led shared workspaces are only able to work as social infrastructure if they are embedded in the local needs, urban fabric, and social tissue. Further work needs to be done by the local authorities to deliver a set of intangible improvements to lift local identities and coastal imaginaries.

The public shared working spaces from Portsmouth – with the whole set of services they host – effectively started functioning as a new form of social infrastructure (Butler Flora & Flora, 1993; Klinenberg, 2018), strengthening the local entrepreneurial community. The choice of directly managing the workspaces proved more successful in building community and local trust. Much remains to be seen about the development of coastal co-workings post-Covid-19. Officers In Portsmouth are trying to seize the opportunity offered by hybrid working patterns to build agreements with medium-sized firms to allow residents to remain in local working spaces thus avoiding longer commutes and contributing to building cross-sectorial networks.

8. Supporting coastal communities: tangible vs intangible interventions for regeneration

Coastal towns in England often struggle to retain local employment and highly skilled human capital. Coastal employers are among the lowest paid in the country characterised by a variety of labour hardships (ONS, 2020). For example, Newhaven has a very high working-age population but a very low skills base. Census data report that only 39% of the population in Lewes District Council has a higher education degree; 5% below the national average (ONS, 2020). More worryingly, drilling down to the parish level we see that only 18% of the population hold a higher education degree in Newhaven (ONS, 2020).

‘So, whilst we have a very high working age population, the skills attainment in Newhaven is low, and with that the aspiration as well. So we kind of coined the phrase “poverty of aspiration” in Newhaven … the companies have to import staff all the time. Brexit has had a big impact, … So, skills and education are a big issue and a long-term issue that the funding we’re attracting won’t address. … that’s the kind of structural issue, as you know. Because the funding we’re having is for capital, it’s for buildings and roads and stuff, which whilst important, if you don’t have a whole long-term view then, you know, we’re going to be a bit, a bit like a table with two legs’. [Int09]

‘Poverty of aspirations’ is a powerful expression referring not only to low educational attainment but also to the shared belief across the youngest population that success and a better life can only be achieved by leaving the town. The branding of Newhaven as a cheap and affordable industrial area also did not help lift the local image. In the last decade, reverting this perception has been a key challenge for the town, with projects including new working spaces aimed at stimulating social innovation. In addition to the social deprivation, all coastal locations also face a limited labour catchment area due to their physical geography (only 180° as compared to the usual 360°), which exacerbates the outmigration of skills and jobs. Shared workspaces are seen to help inverting the narrative of a ‘declining’ coast, managing the ‘brain and business’ drain and attracting new creative enterprises, starting a local process of regeneration.

In the last decade, numerous private consultancies have been employed in a variety of local studies to regenerate the town centre but none of these have met with success. As one interviewee commented, the initiatives have often been disconnected resulting in partial implementation or failure [Int03]. A key example is the regeneration of a potentially attractive waterfront site on Railway Quay. However, though recently refurbished, it is currently sitting inactive after the closure of the University Technical College (UTC) in 2019, after only four years of operation. The original project received funding from the government to boost apprenticeships in the area, but student numbers never materialised. The story of the UTC – as that of the other failed projects – also demonstrates that delivering physical intervention is not enough without addressing other intangible factors generating deprivation. Moreover, these failures have been dispiriting to residents and have further embedded feelings of mistrust in institutions and despondency regarding future progress.

Local trust and perceptions were different in Portsmouth. The bigger population size and the presence of the local university contribute to a slightly different local picture. The educational attainment is only marginally below the national average (41% hold a higher education or equivalent-level qualification; the national average is 43%; ONS, 2021). However, Int05 and Int02 referred to a strong ‘island mentality’, negatively connotated as a tendency towards conservatism where change and risk are blocked, limiting innovation, inward investment and thus regeneration in the city [Int02]. Hence, the story from Portsmouth is once again different, with local institutions committed to creating stronger community ties and a new local entrepreneurial culture.

PCC wished to leverage on a local entrepreneurial culture that originated from the navy suppliers, and that is now trying to diversify while reconnecting with the local traditions [Int05]. Most of the shared workspaces are not necessarily branded as affordable as they are rented at the market rate. The purpose was not to subsidise firms, but to create an environment encouraging firm retention, and to foster the necessary social infrastructure for entrepreneurs to operate and create economic spillovers. The professional training, services and programmes hosted by the shared working spaces are the added value, not the physical infrastructure around them.

Interviewees from both case studies noted that the most important element of support required by new businesses was the recreation of an adequate context and side conditions to undertake entrepreneurial ventures confidently and safely at the local scale. Equally a shared key criticism raised to current governmental frameworks was the lack of funding support to achieve intangible social outputs. For example, the town of Newhaven managed to secure several funding bids in the last three years (Towns Fund, High Street Funding, Levelling Up Fund). Most projects target physical improvements (town centre and key site refurbishment, road access, public transport) but have limited power over skills uplift.

Int09 provided a nuanced perspective on physical interventions, noting that the problem was one of efficiently using funding in a way that would have an impact on the social and educational profile of the city. Without the possibility of funding more intangible social programmes and building management, there is a strong chance, as we saw with the UTC, of physical projects being less resilient and losing their purpose after only a few years [Int09]. Portsmouth interviewees (Int07, Int02) echoed these concerns referencing the Good Growth framework implemented by Solent LEP. They explained that despite its achievement in supporting the construction of hard infrastructure, much work remains to be done regarding the intangible outputs of regeneration: ‘which often generate the most success’ (Int03). This again confirms that addressing the need for social infrastructure is vital for regeneration success and it requires an in-depth understanding of the local socio-economic context and challenges, that in coastal areas also include a limited accessibility and additional environmental pressures at the land–sea interface.

9. Asymmetries in the local governance structure and repercussions on coastal communities

Beyond the site-specific issues encountered in setting up new public workspaces, we also found that governance and politics added to the difficulties of establishing projects. The fragmentation of initiatives and a set of competing political priorities acted as impediments to progress. This idea was repeatedly flagged up by officers in both cases, with one stating that there is a need to ‘connect the dots’ [Int03] to create success.

In Newhaven fragmentation in projects and politics damaged even further residents’ trust in institutions and local institutions’ capacity. In terms of governance, there were mainly three issues noted: the complexity of the three-tier planning system (parish council + district council + county council), their oscillating political ideologies, and the small representation within wider strategical goals of the whole county and the LEP (due to population size in the three-tier system) [Int03; Int08]. As opposed to the single-tier planning authority ruling Portsmouth, officers in Newhaven did not have the authority to decide to directly run and operate shared workspaces and had to work very hard to understand what the key priorities and phasing of the economic recovery program were. This is perfectly illustrated in the long series of consultancy studies commissioned, which ultimately lacked the multidisciplinary understanding of the local context and therefore proved unhelpful. The consequence for local businesses and investors was the perception that local government was inefficient and disorganised. Hence, not a very good environment to settle a business.

The creation of an EZ slightly changed the situation for local leadership. However, due to past failures, its first years of operation had to be dedicated to re-establishing a local economic identity and regaining the trust of the local community. Most of all, this reconciliation with local businesses and the possibility created by a special purpose vehicle for faster decision-making has changed the focus of strategies, making them more targeted and place specific. The strong local leadership offered by the EZ also offered a clearer vision of ways to support new workspaces and related employment opportunities:

‘I’ve been against generic start-up space because I think there are so many operators whom I’m just not convinced they’re not in it for the money. I’m really sceptical about that, […] with the Future High Street funding we’ve got primarily funding for a new creative workspace and an urban living room. We will be […] turning the old co-op building in the town into a creative workspace we’re working with a specific operator […] we will subsidize, and they will provide that [needed] incubation and business support. So, we’re trying to do it in a very specific way addressing where we think there’s an opportunity to grow’. [Int09]

Currently, there are, in fact, two targeted projects in the making (‘The Creative Hub’ and the ‘Urban Living Room’), where the EZ set some strict guidelines on uses and functions to be included while repurposing the buildings of a former supermarket and a multi-storey car park in key sites of the town centre.

In both our locations, the lack of statutory regional authority was commented as a limitation towards the achievement of wider coordinated regeneration goals. In Portsmouth, its status as a unitary authority was seen as a factor in smoother decision-making, especially for punctual initiatives like the delivery and management of shared workspaces [Int04]. Local leadership was more positively perceived, and surely the critical mass of the town presented advantages in decision making, lobbying for funding among the LEP. However, a fragmentation between the various punctual initiatives and the other sectors of the local economy was still registered. For example, there were a few reported issues in cross-sector dialogue between spaces managed by the local authority and the University. Due to the lack of a regional institution, the achievement of more strategic cross-boundary goals addressing some coordinated employment, housing and environmental goals was referred to as being hard to reach even in Portsmouth. These are all goals that a (non-statutory) soft institution like LEPs cannot really help tackle (Haughton et al., 2013). As observed in other coastal geographies and by the literature looking at left-behind geographies (De Ruyter et al., 2021; Nurse & Sykes, 2020), a proper regional plan would be needed, one that the new Levelling Up agenda is not foreseeing at all.

10. Conclusions

Newhaven and Portsmouth offered an interesting viewpoint to assess measures for the delivery of public-led shared workspaces in marginal geographies over the coast. In such contexts, the usual physical measures for regeneration need to be carefully paired with a series of measures tackling the intangible factors affecting the local socio-economic profile and imaginaries.

Coastal towns face a set of intertwined challenges like environmental risks, restricted accessibility, competition with neighbouring cities, and other more rooted issues like job creation and skills development. This is likely true for other places that have been ‘left behind’, from mining towns to rural communities. However, coastal locations offer a different set of opportunities and challenges linked to the coastal landscape and the proximity to the sea, and as such they deserve special attention that is yet to be given within the extant literature and policy frameworks (e.g. the Levelling Up agenda). Public-led shared workspaces could play a role in uplifting the local labour profiling, by leveraging on positive coastal benefits (e.g. easy access to the beach and to marine activities), and promoting shorter commuting times, and a potential better quality of life. To achieve such goal, more work needs to be done towards uplifting coastal imaginaries and highlighting the positive factors over the negatives.

As demonstrated by the strategy adopted by Portsmouth, nurturing a more cohesive and positive community identity is a first necessary step to trigger positive changes. Conversely, by moving further and further away from what makes these places unique, we limit their chances of success.

From a policy-making perspective achieving an in-depth understanding of the local history, criticalities, and the causes of the different types of deprivation and low economic performances should be a key priority. In the case of start-ups and co-working spaces, understanding a community’s potential is a determinant in implementing an appropriate and place-specific approach. Follow-up research should be done in understanding even better ways to reconnect successful economic initiatives with the coastal local identity building successful social infrastructure and hearing from the local communities.

We must move beyond the belief that solely physical measures, like new buildings and infrastructure, create success. Co-working spaces are not rabbits that once pulled out of the hat create prosperity. Both Portsmouth and Newhaven illustrate that triggering inward investment, creating sustainable jobs, and improving local skills, is not the result of merely physical improvement. Hard and soft infrastructure need to be combined to work on tangible and intangible factors at the same time. In our case, the combination of hard and soft measures able to stimulate new employment opportunities correspond to the set-up of new workspaces activating the benefits of new social infrastructure, which is greatly needed in peripheral geographies (Klinenberg, 2018; MacKinnon et al., 2022). In the coastal locations we explored, nurturing community building and a new local image – through public-led shared workspaces – became more valuable than just offering cheap workspaces.

The attention paid by the local authority to fostering social infrastructure created positive externalities that helped improve the wider socio-economic fabric and image of the town. This was different in Newhaven, where the availability of cheap industrial land was not initially matched by a clear strategic vision, eroding local trust and business retention, and creating a vicious spiral of unsuccessful regeneration measures. Once again, if the intangible aspects generating socio-economic decline are not addressed, shared workspaces will not serve any sought-after regenerative purposes.

In the light of post-Brexit labour shortages, efficient ways of supporting the creation and survival of new enterprises in coastal towns will be increasingly needed to make coastal communities more resilient. With the potential of increased hybrid working patterns brought about by the COVID-19 emergency (Mariotti et al., 2021), coastal towns have the chance to provide local employment hubs, leveraging their beautiful landscape and the strength of their local communities. However, coastal institutions will have to build agreements with employers, improve digital accessibility and (physical and social) infrastructure.

Our research shows that there is no universal and easy solution to the regeneration of post-industrial coastal towns. A provision of publicly supported shared workspaces can help the goal, but it is not a guaranteed fix. Regeneration cannot be based on simple repurposing of industrial premises. Strong institutional leadership is also needed, to secure local trust and a coordinated longer-term vision. Place-based solutions should leverage local potential and reconnect to a wider regional program for integrated physical and social regeneration. Only this approach will result in better and longer-term results to combat the local ‘poverty of aspirations’, or the intangible factors causing deprivation and economic stagnation in peripheral geographies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. These small areas are classified as Lower Super Output Areas, LSOA by the Office for National Statics (ONS), they comprise between 400 to 1,200 households and a resident population between 1,000 to 3,000 persons.

2. (see Indices of Deprivation 2015 and 2019 at: http://dclgapps.communities.gov.uk/imd/iod_index.html#)

3. The Local authority structure in England is very fragmented and unequal. After 2011, regional authorities have been abolished, so most planning decisions are taken at the local scale in a system of single, two or three tiers. A three-tier planning system means that the town of Newhaven is regulated at the local scale by three overlapping local authorities: East Sussex County Council, Lewes District Council, and Newhaven Parish Council (holding very few decisional and financial powers). All three authorities can be led by different political parties and most regeneration strategies and major projects need to be agreed by all three tiers. Bigger cities like Portsmouth are administered by unitary authorities, so only one tier of decision-making and taking applies.