On a sunny June day, Weymouth’s esplanade is in full British seaside resort swing. Two hot donkeys sashay along the beach carrying their small, squealing passengers, and there is a long queue outside Rossi’s ice cream parlour. A “wonderful place – wonderful – a great salt sheening sea bending into the land like a bow”, wrote Thomas Hardy, who lived here.
The townhouse hotels and B&Bs on the faded Georgian seafront are doing a decent trade and the harbour is picturesque with its boats and bars. But immediately behind the seafront the gift shops and cafes are interspersed with betting and pawn shops and overhung with To Let signs. Deeper into the town and the Littlemoor housing estate is among the most deprived in Europe, directly butted up against the more affluent Preston.
