Eden Project: Morecambe and the North-West — House of Commons, 2019-06-06
Topic: Public Lands
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): I will give a very condensed history of my beautiful Morecambe and Lunesdale seat, and particularly of Morecambe itself. According to the excellent book, "The Lost Resort?" by Roger Bingham, Morecambe gets its name from the Vikings—it means "pleasant view" or "pleasant bay." Morecambe has seen its fortunes ebb and flow over the past 100 years. It is fair to say that Morecambe was on the decline 20 years ago. After the two nuclear power stations were built—the tourism industry was kept buoyant by the workers building the power stations—there was a sudden collapse in the local economy. Fast forward to 10 years ago and the dilapidated Midland hotel was bought and completely rebuilt by Urban Splash, which did a fantastic job. That art deco gem still has three iconic Gill murals, one on the ceiling Adjacent to the Midland hotel are the Winter Gardens, a beautiful Edwardian theatre that, again, has seen worse times but is now back on the mend due to the efforts of the sadly late Evelyn Archer. She was a leading light in keeping the doors of the Winter Gardens open, despite it having no heating system The Friends of the Winter Gardens have restored the theatre to a point where it can put on shows again. A great thanks should go to Professor Vanessa Toulmin, who took over from the legendary Evelyn Archer. The group has raised money over the years and, dare I say it, I enlisted a couple of my friends, David Hasselhoff and Bernie Marsden from Whitesnake, to give their support Fortunes are increasing due to the copious Government funding that has been pumped into Morecambe since 2010, but we need more. Opposite the Winter Gardens, and at the side of the iconic Midland hotel, is an area that we refer to as the Bubbles site, which is where the lido used to be a long time ago. The site has attracted the attention of Cornwall’s Eden Project, which wants to make a marine-based project in Morecambe to rival anything that Europe and the Eden Project itself have to offer Since becoming an MP, my intention has always been to bring Government investment into Morecambe, which was previously starved of investment. People could not get to Morecambe directly, so they had to go through Lancaster. I am grateful to the Government for helping me to secure £130 million, or thereabouts, for a link road that completely transformed the area. It is estimated that for every £1 that has gone into the link road over the past few years, £6 has been put into the local economy Such infrastructure programmes have to pay a dividend somewhere. Although I secured the funding to sort out the Greyhound bridge from Lancaster to Morecambe and the bypass coming in from the M6, we need something to bolster the area’s fortunes and reinvigorate Morecambe Morecambe used to have what I loosely call "kiss me quick" tourism. Since we have sorted out the sea wall defences with £40 million of Government funding, we have started to see a renaissance of tourism. We have started to see new hotel chains, including Best Western. That was unheard of only a few years ago. In fact, Morecambe is now starting to move above Lancaster in the league of prosperity, but we need something to secure Morecambe’s future Unbeknown to me until chamber of commerce manager John O’Neill told me, the quickest way to the seaside anywhere from the M6 is the Heysham bypass or the bay gateway—the link road that was recently built. Because of that, the Eden Project wants to come along. So we have to look to the future. What would Eden bring to Morecambe? Eden is a unique visitor attraction of regional and national significance. If it comes to Morecambe and it is planned, and if we can get Government funding, it can open in 2023. In the last Budget, the Chancellor approved £100,000—