Life never seems to get any easier for the old-fashioned coastal town. “Whither the Great British Seaside Resort?” has been a staple of feature journalism since I first started reading newspapers and magazines 30 years ago, and now a new data tool published by the Financial Times has exposed the persistent economic and social difficulties faced by coastal towns.

Most of these towns have never really recovered from the rise of foreign holidays in the later 20th century, the growing variety of leisure options at home, and post-Sixties social fragmentation. The long-term structural decline in employment opportunities in peripheral places, especially for talented and ambitious young people, has meant an ongoing brain drain to large urban centers. The rise of remote working has reworked the incentives to some degree — I speak as a member of the “laptop class” with an office in London who lives on the Kent coast — although many employers are now pushing for a substantial return to office-based working.

There are resorts that have managed a renaissance, of sorts. Folkestone, where I attended secondary school, was a rather troubled and run-down place in the Nineties. Nowadays it is the subject of glowing profiles in lifestyle supplements, its renewal helped by the Channel Tunnel, the high-speed rail link to London, and a redevelopment of the old harbor. But overall, the picture remains bleak.

This is a terrible shame, because many of these places have much to offer for the curious or independent-minded visitor. I am biased, naturally, living as I do in a seaside village whose economic life is heavily dependent on summer visitors — we have five pubs, several chippies, and three or four takeaways, few of which could survive without the holiday trade.

All the same, our odd little corner of the world, Romney Marsh, has plenty of attractions: a globally unique ecosystem at Dungeness, a miniature railway, and long, flat, sandy beaches. The same is true of other once-thriving holiday spots that have become punchlines: Skegness is within striking distance of the hugely underrated Lincolnshire Wolds, and while the stark, bleak beauty of England’s North Sea coast is not everyone’s cup of tea, it is highly atmospheric. On the other side of the country, Weston-super-Mare and Westward Ho! offer beautiful coastlines with abundant maritime birdlife, with dramatic uplands like the Mendips and Exmoor just inland.

Of course, these destinations cannot compete with the sunlit glamour of the Mediterranean or the Dordogne. The widespread inchoate sense that a “real” holiday must be taken abroad is probably here to stay. What they do offer is a kind of individual charm, a sense of particularity that is often lacking in slick international resorts in Spain or Greece.

They are also an opportunity for people to re-acquaint themselves with their own country, its landscapes and history. On the north Norfolk coast, children might be thrilled by the legend of King John’s crown jewels still lying undiscovered beneath the sands of the Wash, after 800 years. At Conwy in Wales, or further south at Harlech, the mighty Norman castles might lead the visitor to understand the dramas of Welsh history. And there are some genuinely magnificent beaches tucked away all around Britain, which can compete with anything Europe has to offer — except, perhaps, in the matter of water temperature.

There is no special moral virtue in choosing to holiday at home. And yet, many people would be surprised to know how much fun is to be had by the British coast, in all its glorious variety. There’ll always be an England, as long as intrepid folk want to sit on a faded promenade in a stiff breeze, with a cardboard box of fish and chips.

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Niall Gooch is a public sector worker and occasional writer who lives in Kent.

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