AFTER just one year in the job, Blackpool's tourism chief is facing up to the challenge of taking the resort into the 21st century.

It is a challenge, says Jane Seddon (pictured), which has united the whole town from councillors to leisure chiefs, from hotel owners to shopkeepers.

Quite simply, she sees it as the challenge of helping to make Blackpool her kind of town by the turn of the century, making her birthplace a resort of the future instead of a place of fading investment and fading memories of greatness.

The fightback to the premier division of holidaymaking actually began some time ago, but Jane detects a new spirit of optimism and co-operation in the local tourism industry.

"We are like a family," says the 39-year-old mother of two. "We might scrap amongst ourselves, but woe betide any outsider who wants to indulge in a spot of Blackpool-bashing.

"And now the local people who felt they had something to complain about are actually coming foward with suggestions."

Jane, who took over from "Mr Blackpool" director of tourism Barry Morris last summer, believes there are several reasons for the new confidence that Blackpool can approach the year 2000 as the queen of world resorts:

The massive programme to clean up the seawater will once again put the resort on the map for safer beach holidays which the whole family will enjoy.

Huge investment by the private sector such as the Pleasure Beach's Big One and the possibility of a new stadium for Blackpool FC and entertainment complex at the start of the M55.

A belief that private sector giants like First Leisure should be allowed to apply for Lottery Commission grants to modernise the likes of the Winter Gardens and the Opera House and so let Blackpool compete with sites offering hi-tech facilities.

Unitary status which will give Blackpool a voice of its own instead of joining the queue for a slice of the county cake.

A multi-million pound bid to the Millennium Fund to turn the Promenade into passage through time by the end of the century with a trail of historic features stretching from Starr Gate to the Metropole Hotel.

Hopes of setting aside £2 million for South Shore development from the Single Regeneration Budget with an additional half million from the private sector.

A balanced approach to the problem of DSS hotels so that high tourism and residential areas don't carry too much of the burden.

The same balanced approach to town centre shopping to bring back the quality stores and provide an air of prosperity such as that enjoyed by Southport, for example.

The new confidence has spilled over to Jane herself, who confesses to a certain nervousness on taking over from Barry Morris.

"I know I can do a good job for Blackpool," says Jane, "and the people who work with me are wonderful. There is a great team spirit in the tourism department.

"Even the office cleaner downed mops the other day to help us get 10,000 brochures out in a very limited time."

Jane is Blackpool through and through, born and bred in the town as are her children and loves the place - warts and all.

She says: "I just want to be able to say some day, I did my bit and now...

"It's my kind of town."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.