The ‘unloved’ town abandoned by tourists: How once-thriving seaside jewel is now packed with derelict ghost hotels leaving locals ‘heartbroken’

While for some it still brings back fond childhood memories of a fun-filled seaside holiday, Blackpool is long past its heyday.

It is now one of the most deprived towns in the UK.

Plagued by drugs, poverty and crime, the seaside resort has been in decline for decades.

It has the highest proportion of alcohol-related deaths in England and was recently named the local authority area where men have the lowest life expectancy.

And while it may come as a shock to those who visited the resort religiously during its booming post-war years, to anyone who takes a stroll down the promenade today, the deprivation is clear as day.

Buildings that once housed shops and cafes lay empty, and the ‘forgotten’ streets behind the promenade are left in ruins.

But one of the biggest indicators of the ‘unloved’ town are the plethora of previously bustling hotels that have since shut down and been left crumbling for years.

When MailOnline visited Blackpool, not only were hotels left abandoned and boarded up, but the buildings were seen rotting and disintegrating, becoming a zone for fly-tipping and in some cases, had been targets by gangs for cannabis farms.

The Sherwood Hotel, on the Promenade, lies in a state of disrepair. Furniture has been fly-tipped on its grounds and broken windows have been boarded up

The Allandale Hotel is a row of three hotels beside each other that are all boarded up

At the Parisienne Hotel, also on the Promenade, windows are boarded up and rotting mattresses can be seen through the windows

The Lords Hotel, again on the Promenade, is completely boarded up and its grounds look like a wasteland 

Local councillor Paul Galley told of how he conducted an audit last year of empty properties along the Promenade and counted 28 were left abandoned. A year later, he counted 45.

At the old Sherwood Hotel along Blackpool’s North Promenade, which offers seafront views looking over Morecambe Bay, the site has gone into disrepair.

Despite its beautiful baroque architecture, the hotel, which has laid empty for years, can be seen decaying with everything from road signs to sofas dumped on its grounds.

Its roof is broken, the walls have graffiti on them, and broken windows have been boarded up.

Across the roundabout from the Sherwood, behind the three-star Savoy, stands the former Moorfield Hotel.

Half the letters have fallen off its signage and the bottom of the hotel is completely boarded up.

One window remains propped up, and occupying the abandoned property are flocks of pigeons seen flying in and out of the broken window.

Further down the Promenade from here sits the Parisienne Hotel.

Also laying derelict, one can see straight through the windows to see tables, chairs and mattresses thrown across the rooms.

Paul Reay told of how he has visited the seaside resort every year since being a child and says the decline is ‘heartbreaking’

Blackpool was once seen one of the UK’s jewels but is now one of the most deprived towns in the country

The Carlton Hotel, next door to the Allandale, is also boarded up with broken windows and posters plastered on it

The mold is so bad it can be clearly seen on the mattresses through the windows, and smashed windows indicate they have been the target of vandals.

A group of visitors walk along the promenade looking up at the building in shock, commenting sarcastically on how ‘great’ and ‘beautiful’ it looks.

Standing outside the Parisienne, Paul Reay, 54, from Manchester, told MailOnline he visits the seaside resort every year.

He was with friends who have left the UK for the sunny shores of Tenerife and Madrid in Spain.

He said: ‘We’ve come here since we were children and it is soul destroying seeing a once beautiful seaside resort crumbling into destitution.

‘All you see are derelict buildings.

‘They are prime targets for kids smashing windows, the homeless trying to make their way in, and its a hive for drug dealing.

‘Its also an easy target for gangs to farm drugs for free, hook it up to all the dodgy electrics.

‘What has happened to the place? 

‘People are destitute. It used to be one of the most affluent areas in the northwest, if not in the country. 

‘Now if you go a road back you can easily get class A drugs whatever time of day.’

At the Moorfield Hotel, which sits behind the Savoy, flocks of birds can be seen flying in and out of the window

Locals say they have to look at the derelict buildings every day and say they would like to see them converted into housing for residents

Hotel windows could be seen broken and buildings crumbling. The Allandale, Carlton and Continental all lie empty at the corner of Queen Street and Abingdon Street

While the town still attracts visitor to Pleasure Beach, numbers are ‘nothing like’ they were in its booming post-war years

Looking up at the derelict Parisienne Hotel, his friend chimed in: ‘It looks like something you see online, a creepy abandoned house that you see this kids on social media go in and explore.’

Mr Reay and his brother worked as chefs at the Grand Hotel on the North Promenade many years ago.

He told of the ‘heartbreaking’ change.

‘I’ve been coming here since I was a child. I got stung by my first jellyfish right down here.

‘We still come every year. 

‘But it’s heartbreaking. 

‘Every time you come, you see something else has closed.

‘It used to be cafes galore down here, but it’s all gone. We’re having to walk quite a way up from our hotel to find a cafe.

‘The area just needs a hell of a lot of investment.

‘It would be good if some of the millionaires and billionaires in the country could inject some money into here because it was a great place.

‘Some of it is literally paint work. Get some of the youngsters on community service to come down here and paint the fencing along the pier. It’s little things.

‘I have noticed though that they cleaned up the beach from what is was a few years ago, and you don’t get much litter around here, so they are doing something.’

Behind the Promenade, extremely close to the town centre lies a row of disused hotels.

At the corner of Queen Street and Abingdon Street sit the abandoned Allandale Hotel, Carlton Hotel and the Continental, all one after the other.

The birds can be seen nesting inside the buildings, which have boards lodged in place of broken windows.

Posters are plastered over the outside of the hotels and paint can be seen ripping off the crumbling buildings.

Sat outside the Allandale Hotel, locals Jade Gaughan, 32, and Jamie Jones, 38, told of how the areas behind the promenade have been ‘forgotten’.

Jade Gaughan and Jamie Jones say the area has ‘gotten worse’ and they feel the council ‘forget’ about the locals and only focus on tourists

Pictured: The Continental Hotel on Queen Street. The derelict building is one of many in the seaside resort

The side of the derelict Harper Beach Hotel can be seen crumbling, with paint peeling off

Southways Hotel which is nearby to Harper Beach on the promenade also lies in a state of disrepair

The couple said: ‘It has gotten worse.

‘It’s just a mess isn’t it?

‘It’s not nice here and we feel the council do more for the promenade for visitors than for the people who live in it.

‘They just forget about the side streets.

‘They focus on what is going to generate money for them and leave the rest of us.

‘It’s the people who live here who have to look at this every day.

‘There’s a housing shortage so they could focus on making these abandoned hotels into housing for locals.

‘They’re knocking where we live down which hasn’t got any derelict buildings and rebuilding.

‘The council are getting fed up with the landlords so they are knocking them down and building less houses in its place.

‘So we need to leave temporarily. We don’t want to have to move out.

‘Instead they should concentrate on building these ones up. Look at the state of them.’

Speaking generally of Blackpool, the mother-of-five said: ‘It was already bad and it is getting worse.

‘There’s a big drug problem, kids are carrying knives in high school.

‘I don’t really let my kids play out, my oldest is 13 and I don’t let him wonder the streets, it’s just not safe.’

A report to a meeting of Blackpool Council’s executive listed that at one point during 2024, there were 1,500 properties lying empty in the town. While most of these were houses and BnBs, many were also hotels.

John George, from Glasgow, there would be ‘thousands’ of people trying to get on rides at Pleasure Beach in its heyday but says on his visit this year his kids were sometimes the ‘only ones’ on the rides

Blue Waves Hotel, also along the Promenade, also lies empty 

Despite its baroque architecture, Sherwood Hotel can be seen decaying, with boarded up windows and a crumbling roof

Graffiti reading ‘Free’ can be read at Carlton Hotel on Abingdon Street

Police found a cannabis farm at the New Mayfair Hotel in November last year

Action to reduce the number of empty buildings by working with owners is now being stepped up by the council.

It comes as Ian White, of leading hoteliers group StayBlackpool, warned that the holiday sector is in ‘crisis’ as some hotels are having to operate in ‘unloved’ and ‘unforgiving’ streets, according to the Blackpool Gazette.

Mr White said at the council meeting: ‘Abandoned properties, cannabis farms and ASBs are far from welcoming experiences and don’t encourage holidaymakers to want to stay around.’

The derelict hotels are a telling sign of a wider issue of deprivation. The region is battling a ‘zombie’ drug crisis, gambling addictions, and homelessness.

It is also home to the highest rate of serious mental health issues in England, suffers from four times the average number of drug deaths, and has nearly double the rate of smoking deaths.

In November, police found 600 cannabis plants growing in the former New Mayfair Hotel on New South Promenade.

The building had been lying empty, but from the outside, unlike some other abandoned hotels, was unsuspecting.

Also on the Promenade sits the Sunny Days Hotel, which, while it might not look it, remains open. 

John George, 56, from Glasgow was sat outside the hotel when he spoke to MailOnline.

On either side of the building lie two abandoned hotels.

Parts of the sign at the former Moorfield Hotel had fallen off and was completely taken over by pigeons

Visitors told of how the empty buildings were a sign of a town left ‘unloved’

Tourists looked up at the state of the Parisienne Hotel in shock as they walked past

The Blue Waves Hotel sits out of use to its left, and the Blackpool Resort Hotel lies empty to its right.

A few properties down, the Coastal Bay Hotel also sits abandoned.

The 56-year-old, who was staying in Blackpool for a day with his family before heading to Manchester Airport for a holiday abroad, said: ‘It’s just us in there, there are no other customers.

‘It’s all just rundown.’

‘See if we were booked in here for a week I would’ve checked out the same day’, his wife added.

‘We used to come down here every year from Glasgow. And in the summer you couldn’t get a hotel it was so packed.

‘It used to be so great.

‘But now you can just tell it’s unloved. It’s a real shame, to see Blackpool now compared to what it used to be like.

‘Now you’ve got these abandoned buildings. 

‘The difference is like night and day.

‘When I used to come as a kid there’d be thousands of people hitting about everywhere.

The Coastal Bay Hotel was yet another derelict hotel. A few doors down sits two further derelict hotels

Tourists told of how cheap foreign holidays and the decline of Blackpool had led to a decline in visitors to the area

‘But yesterday when my kids were on the rides, sometimes they were the only ones on it.’ 

Mr George feels an increase in prices and the option of flying abroad on cheap holidays has contributed to Blackpool’s decline.

He said: ‘Everything is too dear now in Blackpool, we went for dinner yesterday it is was £62 for four fish suppers and four cans of juice.

‘Foreign holidays are cheaper now, if you came here for a week or two it would cost you a fortune, but you could get an all-inclusive holiday abroad for less.

‘It was £25 per person to get a ticket for Pleasure Beach, and that’s just to walk around. I have no interest in going on the rides it’s only for the kids, so I’m not paying £100 for four person just to walk around.

‘And it shuts at 5pm now. It used to be open till late.’

Blackpool Council have been approached for comment.