SPECIAL FEATURE: Can art help redesign the future for Morecambe's West End?

Dunstan Low at Gas Contemporary in Lancashire Street.

In the first of two features on the West End of Morecambe, reporter NICK LAKIN explores the possibility of an artistic and creative renaissance in one of the town's most historic neighbourhoods...

Turning, or more accurately, being practically swept off my feet by the “stout sea breeze” off Morecambe Prom and into Lancashire Street, I faced crumbling stone walls, boarded up shops, and silence.

A side of Morecambe all too familiar after 10 years of austerity Britain and the longer term issues that coastal towns have faced for decades.

At least, that was my first impression.

Dunstan Low appears from the doorway of a building, smiling, clutching a coffee cup.

Hitting the national headlines last year for {https://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/winner-revealed-for-lancashire-country-mansion-competition-1-8703767 |successfully raffling off his country house in Melling in the Lune Valley}, he’s recently, and bravely, opened an art gallery at the back of the Alhambra building in the West End.

We step inside the building, where Dunstan explains how he came to find himself there.

Claire Cozler, Julian Abraham, Dunstan Low and Beki Melrose at The Exchange

“I was looking for a small studio space but there was nothing up in Ingleton or Melling,” he said.

“We were driving around and bumped into the guys from The Exchange, and then spoke to Ian Bond, who owns The Alhambra, and now here we are.”

Dunstan had invited me down to see what he hopes could be a revival of art and creativity in the West End.