Margate on the Edge of Regeneration

I took these photographs in 2011, before Margate became shorthand for regeneration. At the time, the town felt caught in a moment where change seemed possible, but nothing was assured. It hadn’t yet been rebranded or rediscovered. Looking back now, as narratives of transformation define Margate, it’s worth asking what has already slipped from view.

This photo essay isn’t a lament or a before-and-after comparison. Instead, it’s a counterpoint to the glossy story of regeneration—a visual reminder of what we forgot, when we rewrite places.

Margate Regeneration and the Quiet Before Change

What I See

My camera lingers on everyday life. I return to buildings that have long shaped Margate’s identity and the people who live around them. Arlington House—the 1960s Brutalist tower on the seafront—appears not as an architectural icon, but as a familiar part of daily life worn by time and weather. Nearby, Arlington Arcade is quieter still, its boarded-up shops caught between past purpose and an uncertain future.

Elsewhere, people sit in cafés, eat fish and chips on the promenade, play games in the amusements, and walk through the streets. The photographs move between shuttered shopfronts, ordinary moments of daily life, and a windswept seafront in its off-season state, stripped of its usual spectacle. Dreamland Margate, synonymous with nostalgia, is closed, functioning less as a destination and more as a familiar landmark waiting to reopen. The Turner Contemporary, now central to Margate’s regeneration story, sits quietly on the seafront—present, but not yet thriving.

Across the series, the images convey stillness rather than crisis, depicting a town in a state of suspension rather than decline.

What I Feel

It’s easy to read these photographs as signs of neglect, or as nostalgia for a town “before regeneration”. I resist both views. For me, they show how people form attachments to places not through grand moments, but through familiarity.

Routes walked daily. Buildings that fade into the background. Spaces passed without much thought. Over time, this repetition creates a quiet affection for place—what some researchers call topophilia, or “a love of place” that grows through lived experience.

Gradually, these routines shape what psychologists call place identity: the sense that a place becomes part of who you are. Looking slowly at these images reveals how closely place and identity intertwine.

What I Know

Our connection to a place is shaped as much by what’s missing as by what’s there. By paying attention to absence—quiet streets, closed shops, hidden corners—these images reveal parts of town life that regeneration stories often overlook. Not drama or crisis, but taking a walk, getting through the day, sharing small jokes, and carrying on despite uncertainty.

These moments don’t signal success or failure, but how life continues.

By avoiding the language of decline or revival, this essay invites a slower way of looking—one that recognises how people build connections to places long before they attract investment, attention, or praise.

Why Photos of Margate Regeneration Matter

Regeneration doesn’t just change buildings. It shapes how people feel about a place and which memories they carry forward. As a photographer and psychologist, I enjoy exploring how “creativity” and “renewal” quietly influence the rhythms of daily life.

Margate on the Edge of Regeneration documents the town before urban planners rewrote its story—when the future felt uncertain, and people carried on with their lives. Looking back now, these images ask a simple question: what else are we at risk of forgetting, just as it slips from view?

Thank you for looking. These images document Margate on the edge of regeneration, and sharing them helps keep the conversation alive.