The definition of a principal seaside town is provided within “England’s Seaside Towns: A ‘benchmarking’ study”, which was commissioned by CLG and published in November 2008. Although the Department uses the definition of the 37 principal seaside towns for analytical purposes, it is not restricted to using this definition for either analytical or policy purposes.
These seaside towns are accurately defined at ward level, generally by their built-up area, which have also been accurately matched to lower super output areas (LSOAs) and have a population of at least 10,000. No sub-divisions of this definition are employed.