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WATCH: Tobias Ellwood blasts Bournemouth council for cancelling major tourist festival
Aug 31, 2025
Tobias Ellwood, who previously represented Bournemouth East in Parliament, has launched a scathing attack on the local authority's governance, describing it as "lacklustre" and "divided" with "absolutely no vision".The former MP expressed frustration over the council's "incompetence" as the seaside town's locals continue to protest against the use of migrant hotels.FULL STORY HERE.
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0:00
Listen, I have been reading these articles in The Telegraph and in The Spectator about Bournemouth
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and I simply don't recognise the description. So people are talking about drugs being openly taken, gangs fighting each other on the beaches
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people using the beaches as public urinals. We have apparently three hotels where asylum applicants are being housed
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And we've got a private safeguarding force, which apparently is a reflection of a lack of confidence in the police
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How many of those are true? I think there's a lot of truth there, but I'm not sure it's any different to other parts of the country
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Bournemouth is not without its challenges. And it's easy to criticise, particularly in these challenging times
0:42
I think the issue for us, and I would encourage commentators as well, is to say, what are the solutions
0:48
How can we actually solve these issues? Bournemouth, as you were outlining, is a very populous seaside town, seven miles of beaches, a vibrant nightlife, a gateway to Dorset
0:58
But the town swells by about 50,000 during the day, more in the evening
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And the Home Office numbers don't factor that in when they give out policing allocations
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So we simply don't have enough police force there to deal with all the challenges that we face
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And when you get so many people coming down, some of them are afraid are bad apples
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Errant behavior that you just outlined does take place. And that then challenges Bournemouth's reputation
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But I'd also add to this that there is perhaps an incompetence of the council
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It's lacklustre. It's divided. There is absolutely no vision. This weekend should be our flagship tourism event of the year, the Bournemouth Air Festival
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The Red Arrows should be flying over the skies right now. They're not. It's been cancelled by this council
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There's been an absence of vision, a clarity as to where Bournemouth and its vibrant place should actually go
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And we're seeing very, very poor council leadership. So this is a bigger question, not just for Bournemouth, but elsewhere
2:00
We not inviting the brightest and the best to stand to lead our communities And until that happens and the policing issues too you going to get these challenges that Bournemouth is facing growing
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not just here, but across the country. To your very first point about whether Bournemouth is being picked out
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I think not, indeed. I think the articles are saying that this is an example
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of what is happening across Britain. The example of Bournemouth is particularly shocking
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because of its past reputation, so gentile, and with such fabulous resources such as these beaches
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You seem to be putting much of the blame on outsiders. Are you talking about people travelling from other parts of Britain for the day
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or are you talking about asylum seekers? Do you think there's been a general decline in standards of behaviour
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or is it that people who come from outside Bournemouth don't know how to behave as well as people who live in Bournemouth
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I think it's a combination of all those things. The asylum seeker piece has not resonated as much as we've seen in the news
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in other parts of the country, but simply the scale of the numbers of people coming down
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And because economically times are tough, then it's an easy place to come to, free place to come to
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The big issue right now, I saw this yesterday, driving along the seafront, is the dozens of vans that are turning up
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where people are just sleeping on the road in their vans and then going to the beach, having barbecues and things like that
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We've never seen that before. So, yes, we are a magnet, if you like, for people to be able to come down
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and enjoy a relatively cheap holiday. But even parking as well, something I really went on as a member of Parliament
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You park in London, and I can't remember what it is. Is it £65? You get straight away
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That doubles straight away. You park in Bournemouth on a double yellow line, it's £25
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So people park up deliberately for the day on a double yellow line
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and the council isn't able to do anything about it. I tried to change the laws in London, in Westminster, about this
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and I didn't get anywhere. So there are some details, some cognitive work that can be done, improving the police numbers
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But I stress as well, sorry to use this as an opportunity to make this case, but I see
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the standard of leadership not just in Parliament as well Good people don want to step forward into public life And we need that We need the leadership I would like to see it actually not just Bournemouth Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole are now one big entity an elected mayor down here So we can
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invite a senior business person, a character, a personality to be able to then move this wonderful
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area forward out of the doldrums that we're currently experiencing. Acts of public worship
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on the beach. I understand that Muslims gather on the beach, they put down their prayer mats
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they orientate themselves towards Mecca and so on. Is that happening a lot? How do people
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feel about it? How do you feel about it? I haven't witnessed it myself. I can imagine
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it's going to be another one of those things that then takes place. There need to be standard
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rules of what is acceptable behaviour on the beaches. At the moment, again, even things
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like barbecues aren't being monitored properly. So what's happening is that anybody choosing to
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advance their own interests are able to do so because there is an absence of collective
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responsibility. And that's why you've ended up with these individual groups wanting to go around
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and provide some form of protection or policing or even clear up as well. Now, the community
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aspect of that is always important in any society. But I just stress there is not the fundamental
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ability for Bournemouth to be able to police and look after itself. That needs to be just
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it's the police funding formula that needs to be addressed. And the entirety of time
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14 years in the Conservative office, I think this is a huge failure that we didn't manage to match
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the visitors' numbers and the residents' numbers to make sure we have a police force that can
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actually look after and protect ourselves here in Bournemouth. Yeah. So these people are going out with uniforms. On the back, they say, I think
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safeguard force. And some people say that they're giving them reassurance. Other people
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are reacting badly towards them. But what has made that necessary? Maybe you've already
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covered that. And how have you reacted to this private policing? So it is an absence of that But you could officiate this as well There you have private protection forces all over the country doing various things And they offer a sense of deterrence When you see people that
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are in uniform, that are asking people to behave, you usually improve your own behavior. It's when
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there's an absence, a void of any form of security whatsoever, or recognition that you're not going
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to get caught or indeed punished. That's the space. The messages got out through social media
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I mentioned those vans as well and so on. If you want to come down and have barbecues on the seafront, the message gets out pretty quickly
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Bournemouth is taken as an easy ride. And we need clarity, what the vision is, the purpose of where this wonderful town goes
6:55
Its strengths are actually threefold. It's not just tourism and hospitality that you touched on at the beginning
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We have financial services. JP Morgan has a massive office, 7,000 here, and that's attracted other aspects of the financial services
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And then there's the digital and creative industries. We're one of the best universities, not just in Britain, but in Europe when it comes to this
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Bournemouth grasped this whole change a couple of decades ago. These are the three pillars that could move Bournemouth forward
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Go back to the council. There's no vision to take any of these three forward whatsoever
7:26
We don't even have a tourism, head of tourism on the cabinet. That role has been dismissed completely
7:31
I think we've picked up your attack on the council. Let me just read this to you from the Telegraph
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It's a microcosm illustrating some of the many social problems linked to the catastrophic loss of control of our borders
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In the migrant camps of Calais, public defecation is standard behaviour. Now it seems to be here on Bournemouth beaches and elsewhere
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The very visible tipping point that has seen tens of thousands of ordinary people take to the streets has been in the making for a long time
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Is that an exaggeration when referring to Bournemouth? Yes, completely. I think there's two narratives trying to be woven together
8:06
I don't deter from the fact that Bournemouth has got its challenges, as other parts of the country have done. We've just discussed that. But to somehow say that this is a direct blame on the migrants and the big challenge there, which of course needs to be addressed, I think is actually doing Bournemouth and indeed the challenges that we face a disservice
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