2103 Local Economic Study of
the Alde and Ore
Key Headline Messages
for
Regional and Local groups
Summary of headlines (1)
• Residents/Second home owners: The people who choose to live here or
have second homes here choose the area because it is peaceful, beautiful
and has a wide range of cultural activity. They are spending more than
they have ever done, are likely to retire here, and spend their time in parts
of the area that depend very heavily on continued defence of the present
environment
• Farmers/Landowners: Not only the £12m of output and the 2,300 jobs
presently supported by Alde and Ore farming are at risk if sea defences fail
and abstraction/irrigation becomes unfeasible – greater losses will be felt
through the supply chain, and local income and employment dependent
on the supply chain will be at risk as well.
• Parishes/Communities: Concerted, local action is a major priority for local
communities, so that we can all continue to benefit from the unspoilt,
quiet and beautiful countryside we presently enjoy; without a
collaborative plan for improving and maintaining our sea defences all this
is at risk;
Summary of headlines (2)
• Businesses: businesses in the Alde and Ore area benefit immensely
from tourists and other visitors to the area, whose continued choice
of the area depends heavily on the local environment and the
cultural and sporting opportunities it provides – the most important
factors that local businesses quoted to us are the environment, the
countryside, the river and the unspoilt nature of all three.
• Environmental/Policy Groups: Concerted, local action is a major
priority for local communities and policy-makers, so that the
economic, cultural and social benefits that we and the region derive
from the unspoilt, quiet and beautiful countryside can be
preserved. The key benefits and assets are spread across a wide
range of stakeholders, and a similarly widely-shared collaborative
plan for improving and maintaining our sea defences will be needed
to meet the challenge
Residents and Second Home owners
• People choose to live here because they value the environment and the
scenery; because they like living near the coast; and because it is peaceful
here;
• Second home owners take exactly the same view, and it’s not surprising
therefore that • Nearly four in ten residents who answered our survey moved here to
retire; possibly because the same number, 40%, have family links here,
enjoy the huge range of local activities and specifically enjoy the musical
and artistic life of the Alde and Ore area;
• Most residents spend money locally on leisure activities and day to day
shopping (70%), with larger items bought elsewhere –second home
owners buy most of what they need locally (80%);
• Total annual local expenditure is around £4,700 for homeowners and
£5,100 for second home owners.
Residents and Second Home owners
•
•
•
•
Both residents and second home owners are spending a lot more than they
did in 2004, when we last surveyed the local economy – the overall average
spend has doubled in real terms; expenditure on food and drink is the most
important category;
When people live here or visit their second homes (which they do on average
12 weeks a year), they go shopping, they take walks, and they go to the beach
- this hasn’t changed since the 2004 study;
The next most popular activities are cycling, concert-going, sailing and
sightseeing.
KEY MESSAGE: the people who choose to live here or have second homes
here choose the area because it is peaceful, beautiful and has a wide range
of cultural activity. They are spending more than they have ever done, are
likely to retire here, and spend their time in parts of the area that depend
very heavily on continued defence of the present environment
Farmers and landowners
•
Farming is a very significant contributor to the economy of the Alde and Ore area,
with an annual crop value of around £12m from the 3,000 ha under cultivation,
and around 2,300 jobs supported purely by cultivation;
•
Farming in the very low rainfall coastal area currently depends heavily on water
availability – farming uses around 30% of all the water used in the Coastal
catchment area;
Water availability in its turn is largely a matter of irrigation and without irrigation
by abstraction, the value of agricultural land could drop by up to a third (£13.5
k/ha to £9.5k/ha);
Irrigation points within the flood cells protected by existing and planned sea
defences supply water to up to 7,000 ha of agricultural land; and the same
defences protect around 320 ha of land which could be completely lost if seas
defences fail;
Key message: Not only the £12m of output and the 2,300 jobs presently
supported by Alde and Ore farming are at risk if sea defences fail and
abstraction/irrigation becomes unfeasible – greater losses will be felt through the
supply chain, and local income and employment dependent on the supply chain
will be at risk as well.
•
•
•
Parishes and Communities
• There are around 7,500 resident households and 1,000 second homes in
the Alde and Ore area;
• Every year, 280,000 day visitors and 100,000 overnight visitors join local
residents to enjoy our part of Suffolk;
• In our survey, all of these people (as well as local sailors and others)
stressed the importance to them of the local environment – the most used
words were unspoilt, beauty, tranquil, peace, scenery, river;
• About 1,000 businesses are to some extent dependent on the same
things; visitors and residents told us that their most usual activities were
shopping, beach visits, walking, sailing, sightseeing, concert-going, most of
which generate income for local businesses – and all of our visitors and
residents are spending more on eating, drinking and travelling;
• Our local landscape and wildlife reserves are important to the
maintenance of this environment, as well as being a draw in themselves
for thousands of visitors each year; local attractions such as Snape
Maltings, Orford Castle and the Aldeburgh Food Festival are increasingly
popular;
Parishes and Communities
• The value to our local economy from all of these activities is
immense; just looking at leisure spending, the Alde and Ore area
generates around £96m a year from residents, second home
owners, tourist visitors and cultural/sporting activities, with a
further £12m from farming activities;
• All of this income depends, to some extent, on the local area
retaining its attraction to visitors and settlers here (around 40% of
residents settled here in retirement; most of our tourist visitors
come several times a year); and the overwhelming response to our
survey has been that preserving the estuary through maintaining its
defences against the sea is a high priority;
• Key message: Concerted, local action is a major priority for local
communities, so that we can all continue to benefit from the
unspoilt, quiet and beautiful countryside we presently enjoy;
without a collaborative plan for improving and maintaining our
sea defences all this is at risk.
Politicians, local and regional
• ? As for Environmental and Policy Groups ?
Businesses
• There are probably around a thousand local businesses in the area
covered by our survey, and around 35 of them responded to the survey –
which means that our results are likely to be biased towards those with a
stake in the maintenance of the local environment;
• Many of those businesses are dependent on expenditure generated by the
280,000 day visits made to the area each year, the 100,000 overnight
visits, and the 8,500 local households, which generate roughly £59m,
£17m, £17.6m respectively, with a further £2m from sporting enthusiasts;
• The businesses we surveyed employed between them about 520 staff, on
a highly seasonal basis, suggesting that they are dependent to a great
extent on the visitor and tourist trade; the tourism trade in total in the
Suffolk Coastal area employs around 5,400 staff , around 11% of all
employment in the area;
Businesses
•
•
•
•
97% of the businesses responding to our survey declared themselves in some
way dependent on the quality of the local environment; and 86% would find
themselves badly affected if river activities declined;
The most important activities that draw visitors to the area to become
customers of local businesses are beach visits, walking, shopping, concert
going and sailing, with a dozen others only slightly less important;
Aldeburgh Music and the Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival between them
generate around 110,000 visits a year, without accounting for day to day
visitor traffic to the Snape Maltings shops and restaurants, and are a very
important element of the area’s tourism offer, especially with the increase in
the importance of local food and food ‘tourism’.
KEY MESSAGE: businesses in the Alde and Ore area benefit immensely from
tourists and other visitors to the area, whose continued choice of the area
depends heavily on the local environment and the cultural and sporting
opportunities it provides – the most important factors that local businesses
quoted to us are the environment, the countryside, the river and the
unspoilt nature of all three.
Environmental and Policy Groups
• There are around 7,500 resident households and 1,000 second homes in
the Alde and Ore area;
• Every year, 280,000 day visitors and 100,000 overnight visitors join local
residents to enjoy our part of Suffolk;
• In our survey, all of these people (as well as local sailors and others)
stressed the importance to them of the local environment – the most used
words were unspoilt, beauty, tranquil, peace, scenery, river;
• About 1,000 businesses are to some extent dependent on the same
things; visitors and residents told us that their most usual activities were
shopping, beach visits, walking, sailing, sightseeing, concert-going, most of
which generate income for local businesses – and all of our visitors and
residents are spending more on eating, drinking and travelling;
• Our local landscape and wildlife reserves are important to the
maintenance of this environment, as well as being a draw in themselves
for thousands of visitors each year; local attractions such as Snape
Maltings, Orford Castle and the Aldeburgh Food Festival are increasingly
popular;
Environmental and Policy Groups
• The value to our local economy from all of these activities is immense,
with around £96m in leisure spending and a minimum of £12m
agricultural income;
• The overwhelming response to our survey has been that preserving the
estuary and its amenities through maintaining its river and sea defences is
a high priority; the knock-on effects in terms of agricultural income and
asset values and residential property values were not a part of the survey
methodology, but it is clear that these too would be at consequential risk,
and the values here are clearly equally significant;
• Key message: Concerted, local action is a major priority for local
communities and policy-makers, so that the economic, cultural and
social benefits that we and the region derive from the unspoilt, quiet
and beautiful countryside can be preserved. The key benefits and assets
are spread across a wide range of stakeholders, and a similarly widelyshared collaborative plan for improving and maintaining our sea
defences will be needed to meet the challenge
Key Numbers
•
Numbers and Income:
– Homeowners
– Second Homes
– Day visits
– Overnights
– Yachtspeople
– Wildfowlers
7,585
964
280,000
100,000
1,400 sample
100
£16m
£1.6m
£59m
£17m
£1.4m
£0.65m
NB total population
is around 16,000, of
which 21% are >65 yrs old
3,000ha
£8.8 - £12.025m
NB 359 homes at risk of
flooding + 165 non-res
• Agricultural
– Crop area/Income
• Tourism/Employment
– Tourism in SCDC area
– Holidays only
– Staff employed
• Survey responses
297,000 trips/901,000 nights/£37m spend
151,000/533,000/£28m
4,800 (2,200 FT/2,600 PT Plus 600 owners etc
H/V 355; Yacht 131; Business 37; Wflr:37
NB 20,000 is
total
employment in
A&O