Southport MP Patrick Hurley has welcomed a major campaign victory after the Government formally adopted his call for a targeted education programme to improve outcomes for young people in coastal communities like his own in Southport.
The announcement came last week in the Government’s Schools White Paper, which confirmed the launch of Mission Coastal – a new initiative aimed at tackling entrenched disadvantage in seaside towns and boosting educational opportunity for children growing up by the coast.
The announcement follows a campaign launched by Patrick Hurley and a grouping of 66 Labour MPs representing coastal areas as part of the Coastal Parliamentary Labour Party (Coastal PLP), who campaign for government action to transform the lives of communities living on the coast.
Key requests of the Coastal PLP include:
- The appointment of a Minister for Coastal Communities with the responsibility for driving a coastal communities strategy across government.
- Sustained investment in post-16 education, apprenticeships, and non-graduate jobs in deprived coastal towns.
- Increased investment in public transport infrastructure around the coast.
- The design and implementation of a coastal health strategy, based on Sir Chris Whitty’s report into health in coastal communities, that tackles the entrenched health inequalities that exist on the coast.
The campaign was launched at last year’s Labour Party Conference, where the Coastal PLP called for a “Coastal Challenge”, modelled on the successful Blair-era London Challenge that transformed school standards and life chances for young people across the capital.
Mission Coastal will focus on improving outcomes for young people in disadvantaged coastal areas, where opportunity is often limited by geography, fragile local infrastructure, poor transport links, and the compounding effects of deprivation. The programme will work with schools, academy trusts, and local partners to tackle barriers to learning and strengthen the conditions that allow young people to thrive.
Central to the initiative will be collaboration, with new local partnership boards bringing together teachers, school leaders, councils and community representatives. Where challenges such as low parental engagement persist, Mission Coastal will take a “test, learn and grow” approach – building evidence of what works and scaling up successful practice.
Chair of the Coastal PLP, Polly Billington MP, said:
“In the 1990s, London’s young people were written off, but the last Labour government defied the pessimists by launching the London Challenge, which transformed educational outcomes for London’s young people and whole communities in the process. I’m delighted the government has adopted the Coastal PLP’s proposal for a similar programme in coastal areas.
“Mission Coastal shows the same ambition for coastal young people as New Labour had for London — the determination needed to deliver a decade of renewal and opportunity in coastal areas that have been neglected for too long.”
Patrick Hurley MP said:
“I was proud to back this campaign from the very beginning, because young people across Southport and its Northern Parishes deserve the same focus, ambition and support from government as those growing up in our major cities.
The Government’s decision to launch Mission Coastal is a huge step forward for our young people. It is exactly the kind of bold, targeted intervention local schools and families have been calling for, with the potential to deliver the same lasting, transformative impact for coastal communities as New Labour’s London Challenge did for young people in the capital.”
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