The People's Pier: The popular culture of pleasure piers and cultural regeneration through community heritage

The People’s Pier research project investigates community piers as an emerging form of community hubs. It focuses on two related aspects of seaside piers and community connectivity; first how communities of place may be strengthened in their confidence by taking collective action to safeguard a local heritage asset like the pier and second how the community pier and its popular culture heritage can be utilised to build positive relationships across different groups and empower the community.

With an interdisciplinary team of researchers, creative practitioners and working in collaboration with our community organisation partners – The Clevedon Pier and Heritage Foundation and The Hastings Pier Charity – we seek to make a contribution to the understanding of the role of popular culture in relation to community development and culture-led regeneration.