Better jobs, better health, better Blackpool

February news and updates from Chris Webb, MP for Blackpool South

Welcome to the second edition of my Born & Bred newsletter. And a special welcome to the hundreds of new subscribers who have signed up since the January edition.

Many of you will have arrived here after attending my jobs fair yesterday (27th Feb). One of my election pledges was to host this event – the biggest of its kind that Blackpool has ever seen – and it was a proud moment to see that come to fruition, and to see 4,000 job seekers benefitting. There’s a full update on what happened on the day below.

Also in this newsletter, find out how the government is investing in the future health of Blackpool.

Investing in Blackpool’s health

February saw more funding announcements that will benefit the future health of Blackpool residents.

Included in this was the largest real-terms increase to public health funding in nearly a decade, following years of cuts under the Tories.

£21.5 million has been allocated to Blackpool in the Public Health Grant – this will help drive improvements in key public health services, from smoking cessation and addiction recovery to child health services and sexual health.

For a town like Blackpool, which faces significant health challenges, this investment is vital.

Services on the frontlines, such as those tackling our opioid crisis and alcohol dependency issues, will benefit from this boost, which will allow them to expand the important work they do supporting vulnerable members of our community

By focusing on prevention rather than just treatment, we can not only improve health outcomes but also relieve pressure on our NHS and social care systems.

One area of our NHS that is in tatters is dentistry – and it’s one that this Labour government has committed to reforming.

Blackpool, like many other areas across the country, is known as a “dental desert,” where NHS dental services have all but disappeared. In 2023, only 38% of children in Blackpool were seen by a dentist – a sharp decline from 57% just seven years ago. Even more concerning is the fact that only 36% of adults in Blackpool received dental care that year, well below the national average of 54%.

I’ve spoken to local dentists like Nick Cheatle at King Street Dental Surgery, who have shared their concerns about the situation. Despite their best efforts, private practices cannot fill the gap left by the government’s failure to invest in NHS dentistry.

The Labour government is taking decisive action to address the dental crisis that has left so many people in Blackpool and across the country without access to the care they need. Labour has pledged to deliver 700,000 additional urgent dental care appointments across the country, and in Lancashire and South Cumbria, 20,822 urgent care appointments will be made available. This is a significant step forward, offering hope to people who have been waiting far too long for treatment.

This is a critical moment for NHS dentistry in Blackpool and across the country. We’ve heard the voices of residents who have been waiting too long for care, and we’re taking action. While the journey to fix NHS dentistry will take time, the delivery of these urgent appointments is a significant step in the right direction.

We’re on the right path, and together, we’ll build a healthier, better Blackpool.

Thousands of job seekers turn up for Blackpool Jobs Fair  

The sun shone on us yesterday as I cut the ribbon and opened Blackpool Jobs Fair, alongside employment minister Alison McGovern.

Over 4,000 job seekers turned up to attend the event that was organised by my constituency team and local Jobscentre staff. Over 100 employers attended, offering over 1,500 jobs – over 500 of which were given on the day, along with over 500 interviews offered on the spot.

That morning, new figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) were released, showing that the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) reached an 11-year high in 2024.

Nearly 1 million 16-24-year-olds are adrift nationally – almost one out of every seven people in that age range, and in Blackpool the picture is even worse.

This is the knock on impact of 14 years of Tory austerity and neglect for the working classes and seaside towns like Blackpool.

So it was great to see so many young people turning up yesterday – like Bradley (filmed below), who came along with his youth worker Brendan to check out the opportunities on offer.

The feedback from employers was fantastic on the day, with people telling me they had run out of application forms and were having to print out more, and others who regularly attend jobs fairs telling me that they had never been to one of this quality where the visitors had such an appetite for finding work.

Alison McGovern put it best when she said that anyone who has assumptions about what Blackpool may be would have their perceptions challenged by visiting Blackpool Jobs Fair. We had fantastic employers there – some you might expect to see, such as the Pleasure Beach, Merlin and the Sandcastle, but we also had local manufacturers like Victrex and Glasdon, public services like Lancashire Fire Service and police, and huge Fylde Coast employers like the NHS and BAE.

Delivering this jobs fair was one of my election promises, and it was important to me that it offered quality job opportunities, apprenticeships and career progression – not just seasonal jobs.

But to tackle unemployment we need to consider the reasons people are out of work in the first place – beyond a lack of opportunities. That’s why it was also important to me that this Jobs Fair didn’t just set people up with work and abandon them. On the day, the ground floor of the Winter Gardens Conference Centre was dedicated to service providers and community partners – offering CV writing workshops, employability advice, mental health support, wellbeing services and education and training opportunities.

I was grateful that the sun shone because, from the moment we cut that ribbon, people were queueing out of the door – at some points in the day, the queue stretched around the corner to Church Street. While it’s fantastic to see such an incredible appetite for the event, it’s also a sad indictment of the amount of people seeking work.

That said, while chatting to people in the queue, I bumped into a couple I recognised from working at my local express supermarket. They told me they were looking for career progression, and had heard about the breadth of opportunities available at the jobs fair. I look forward to finding out how they got on next time I see them.

If you attended the jobs fair and it leads to work for you, please get in touch with me and let me know. Blackpool has been dealt a tough hand over the years, but these success stories are what I want to celebrate – to show the rest of the country what a fantastic town and community Blackpool is.

Thank you to everyone who made yesterday happen, and to everyone who attended. My ambition is to make this an annual event that gets bigger and better every year and brings in more and better opportunities.

Over on my website, I post regular updates throughout the month. Head over to chriswebb.org/news to keep up to date and check out these highlights from February below.

Blackpool’s beaches will be a source of pride, not pollution.

Be part of the generation that stops HIV.

Why we need to close the Metropole as an asylum hotel.

Street Surgeries

I’m hosting two street surgeries in March – in Park Ward on 20th and Waterloo on the 27th. Residents will receive a letter through their door telling them when I’ll be on their street. If they have things they’d like to discuss, they can display the poster on the reverse of the letter in their window and I’ll knock on for a chat. This means people don’t need to make the effort to travel to my office to be able to tell me about their concerns.

I’m working to Build a Better Blackpool, but I can’t do it alone. Throughout 2025, I am going to be building my Born & Bred Activist Network – a group of local people who are interested in taking action to bring about real change in our town.

If you’re interested in getting involved, please email me at chris.webb.mp@parliament.uk and write ‘Born & Bred Activist Network’ in the subject line.

Each month, I’ll also ask Born & Bred newsletter subscribers to take some small actions that could make a big difference.

Sign my petition: Reopen the Metropole Hotel as a tourist destination Blackpool in Blackpool

Since 2021, the hotel has been used as accommodation for asylum seekers in Blackpool – a location and facility that is entirely inappropriate for these vulnerable individuals and families.

I believe that the Metropole should return to its original purpose as a tourist hotel, serving Blackpool people and visitors to the town.

Join my call to restore it here.

Share my Blackpool South Directory

When carrying out casework in my constituency, there are some services that I have found myself consistently signposting to. My office is working hard to bring together an extensive directory of places in Blackpool South that can help with concerns around benefits, housing, health and more. I have highlighted some of the key services here.

📧 Email me at chris.webb.mp@parliament.uk

☎️ Call my constituency office on 01253 532401

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