Blackpool Rocks

Blackpool gets another bucketful of gloom dumped over it today; more decline, more grumbles, more visitors heading off to somewhere else. But the town is as tough as one of its formidable landladies and it will survive. The question for Britain's capital of simple pleasures is how far should it risk its long-standing virtues in pursuit of something novel and, in the strictly non-meteorological sense of the word, cool?

The current strategy in the resort, which is still the country's most popular as well as the source of a quarter of the north-west's tourist income, is to hype the prospect of becoming Las Vegas in Lancashire. Billions in investment are enticingly close, thanks to relaxations in local gaming laws. That would be the sort of money which erected the iconic Tower in 1894 and laid out the trams nine years earlier - and of course it would be welcome. But Blackpool needs to safeguard its gold of a different sort.

Across the north, relatively low-in come households and people who might otherwise despair of a holiday find an exceptionally warm welcome in the resort. There are guest houses which not only specialize in elderly and disabled guests, but collect them from sheltered housing or homes - as far away as Leeds or Sheffield - and run them safely home again. Their owners provide entertainment during the stay which might be dismissed by a superficial observer as down market. In fact, it is carefully attuned to these clients' highest hopes.

This market has to be reasonably priced, but it does not have to be tatty. Elsewhere, the bucket-and-spade resort of Cleethorpes has skilfully used European funding, with tough conditions attached, to raise the guest house and B&B game. That should go side by side with the glitzy casinos. Both should welcome this month's challenge from English Heritage and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment for better - much better - seaside design.