Marine Parade Masterplan, 1976

In September 1976 a large architectural model set out a possible future for Folkestone's Marine Parade. Associated with architect Brian Dobbie, it drew the existing seafront attractions, performance spaces, roads and harbour approaches into a single visitor district. Conference facilities, leisure provision and controlled pedestrian routes were presented as parts of the same civic project.

The proposal belongs to a period when the traditional resort economy was being asked to accommodate conference visitors, cross-Channel passengers, all-weather entertainment and a longer tourist season. The model did not arrive in the form shown. It remains unusually complete as a picture of what the town intended to become.

The proposal treated architecture as part of Folkestone's tourist infrastructure. Performance, conference use, recreation and modern hotel accommodation were intended to support one another. The harbour was not a distant backdrop: it formed part of the approach to a town still defining itself through ferries, the Channel and the movement of visitors.

This was a practical attempt to answer changes already pressing on British seaside resorts. Indoor and all-weather uses could extend activity beyond a short summer season; conference rooms and hospitality could bring a different kind of visitor; clearer circulation could make the seafront read as a single destination rather than a row of neighbouring attractions.

In the divided Europe of the 1960s and 1970s, an international folklore festival offered a comparatively open setting in which ensembles from different political systems could meet and perform. National and regional identities were displayed through music, costume and customary performance, while the event itself was organised as civic hospitality rather than a political conference.

Festival records document visiting groups from across Europe, bringing music, dance, costume and procession into Folkestone's civic and seafront spaces.

The Bear is shown at the Civic Offices as a figurehead for the Marine Parade plans, the International Folk Festival, and the programme around the Marine Pavilion and Dome.

In the display photographs, he is a familiar public mascot: there to welcome visitors, draw attention to the model and give the different projects a recognisable face.

The redevelopment did not arrive in the form presented by the model. Some elements of the seafront survived, some were altered or lost, and later proposals occupied the same ground. The model's careful routes and complete visitor economy remain fixed in September 1976.

The Bear did not cause this outcome. He simply persists in the associated photographs more readily than much of the proposed architecture. The images retain him beside a future that was planned, pictured and publicly presented, but never fully reached.