A SEASIDE town made famous by former world heavy-weight boxing champ Tyson Fury is on the ropes.

Gritty ITV cop drama ‘The Bay’ attracts five million viewers, but has done nothing to restore Morecambe’s fortunes as a tourist and holidaying hotspot.

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Dilapidated buildings, boarded up shops, closed hotels, and vandalised shopping arcades blight the Lancashire seaside resort.

And homeless down-and-outs, swigging cans during the day, plague the streets.

Morecambe FC has been besieged with talks of going under after 105 years, with the beleaguered club enduring a chaotic summer since being relegated from League Two, with staff and players not even paid.

Some football club workers have been offered food parcels. As it stands, the National League club is on the brink of extinction, though takeover talks continue.

Eden Project Morecambe – a sister to the popular Eden bio-spheres in Cornwall – is hoped to breath new life into the area and bring tourists flocking back to the resort. But that is at least three years away.

Brother and sister Liam, 14, and Lola, nine, were visiting Morecambe from their native Canada and were drawn to the vandalised and graffitied former shopping arcade, which is fenced off to the public due to a rusted and collapsing roof.

They were accompanied by their aunt and nan Kay Robinson, 73, who remembers the good old days of the seaside resort.

It used to boast such attractions as the Super Swimming Stadium lido, the pleasure park Frontierland and sea life centre Marineland.

“It’s gone down hill since the 1970s,” said Kay.

“There used to be fairgrounds, illuminations, an amazing swimming pool, there used to be everything. We liked coming here better than Blackpool.

“Even the outdoor market has gone now. Everything has gone or is going now.

“You can’t go round the pubs like you used to, it used to be a great night out around Morecambe, but not now.”

Visitors love taking selfies beside the statue of the late comedian Eric Morecambe, which was unveiled on the promenade by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999.

Holidaymakers Paul and Alison Johnson, from Glossop, posed with grandson Ralphie, eight, as they enjoyed the summer sunshine.

Paul, 59, who has visited Morecambe over the years, said: “It seems to be getting cleaner, now this sea front has been done up.

“We have a caravan near here.”

Alison, 51 said: “It’s lovely in the sunshine.”

But directly opposite the iconic bronze tourist attraction stands reminders of the resort’s decline.

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Standing side-by-side, Eric’s Cafe and the Tivoli Bar, are closed down at what should be the height of the summer season.

And the town centre, just a streets from the prom, is lined with abandoned shops, closed down pubs and eateries and empty banks.

A homeless rough sleeper was slouched by the entrance to the tired Arndale Centre, which stands beside a boarded-up pawnbrokers and opposite empty shops and the shell of the former Santander bank.

In a shaded doorway down a run-down street a couple of scruff-looking men, one sitting beside his crutches, were swigging from cans of super-strength Oranjeboom beers, as parents and kids walked past.

Back on the sunny promenade where the popular outdoor swimming pool, which used to be home of the Miss Great Britain beauty contest between 1956 and 1989, John and Lynda Ritchie were taking a stroll.

“This is where they are going to build the Eden centre, if it ever gets off the ground,” said John, 80, visiting with wife Lynda, 80, from Kendal.

“It can’t come soon enough. It’ll hopefully save the town.”

“We used to bring our lads here to swim in the pool, but it is such a shame what it is like now,” said Lynda.

“Hopefully things will change when the Eden Project comes, but I wish they’d hurry up, I’d like to see it.

“The place has very much gone down hill, as many seaside towns have since people started to go abroad.”

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First-time visitors David and Lynn Buswell, from Leicestershire, were walking their Staffie Tyson – aptly named as Morecambe is the home town of former world heavyweight champ Tyson Fury – along the prom after parking up their motorhome.

“Never been here before. I’m here because my mum and dad had a photo taken with the Eric Morecambe statue and we want to recreate it,” said David, 64, a music producer.

“It looks like an average, typical English seaside town, nothing special. Okay for the kids, but not us.

“We will be parking up the motorhome for one night – not for two though. I think we will be moving on.”

Lynn, 69, said: “We have just come down from the Lake District, which was beautiful. This is a stark contrast.”

South of the town centre, the Cumberland View pub is boarded up.

Beside the former almost seafront railway station – closed now and turned into a pub – is the Festival Market.

Trains, no longer full or excited holiday makers and day trippers from West Yorkshire, now pull in to a dowdy wooden platform next to a boarded up former restaurant 500 yards of more inland.

Festival Market trader Karen Brown, 66, has been running her stall The Beauty Box for 50 years, and has seen the decline of the town.
“The place has gone really down hill since the glory days. The job is tougher now,” said Karen.

“I don’t do too bad in summer with the tourists. They come to buy things. But, in winter, the locals don’t tend to to use the market. They should do, they’ll whinge if it goes.

“The visitors come round saying what a lovely market it is and they appreciate it, but the locals, not so much.”

Fellow market trader Julie Norris, 58, has run sweet stall, Sweet Tweets, for five years.

“I’m finding trading in Morecambe alright because all the other sweet shops are shutting down,” said Julie.

“The kids are coming here for their holiday treats. And we also do well from people coming here to buy snacks and sweets before going to the cinema next door.

“They don’t want to pay rip-off cinema prices so stock up here before going to see a film.

“I love working here and if the Eden Project comes it will be fantastic. It’ll be very family orientated.”

Tyson Fury

Fury is arguably the town’s biggest name, living in the area with his wife Paris and their seven children there.

And today, it was revealed that he had sold a property in the area – for a knockdown price of £700,000.

Speaking last year, he told TNT: “17 years, it’s become my home. A new home, away from home. I actually cast myself now as from Morecambe, I don’t say I’m from Manchester anymore.

“It’s been keeping me grounded – I have always likened Morecambe to Alcatraz island… because if you go 200m that way you hit the sea, and if you go a couple of miles that way you hit the M6 motorway, and you’ve got to drive an hour to get to any city.

“It’s a big island, there’s not much distractions, there’s not much stuff to do, you can’t spend your money here because there’s nothing to spend it on, apart from Asda… That’s it, really, it’s a good place for a fighter…

“It’s kept me grounded, away from all the limelight.”

He added that locals are very respectful and leave him alone when he goes for runs. “If I go to any other city in the world, oomph Elvis has landed.”

The “Gypsy King” has previously expressed interest in buying Morecambe FC and told talkSPORT: “I was thinking I invest X amount of millions in them. Basically throw it at them and keep them going up. I’ve been offered to buy Morecambe Football Club.

“I own all the training facilities anyway and the training gym. So who knows? You might be looking at a football club owner.”

The Tyson Fury Foundation sits in the north-east corner of the football club’s Mazuma Mobile Stadium.

However, the Telegraph has claimed that Fury currently has no interest in buying the Shrimps.

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