The Be Who You Want To Be Quarter

A village nobody planned

Blackpool's gay quarter was never designed. It grew out of the Flamingo on Talbot Road in 1979, the gay hotels that followed it into the terraces of Lord Street, High Street and Dickson Road, Funny Girls on Queen Street from 1994, and the bars that clustered around them. By the 2000s the area north of the town centre, in what is now Claremont ward, had one of the highest concentrations of LGBTQ+ venues anywhere in the country.

For most of that time the relationship with the town hall was complicated. In the early years Basil Newby struggled to get licences because some officials considered a gay man an improper person to hold one. In the 2000s the council bought and demolished the building that housed the Flamingo and the Flying Handbag for its Talbot Gateway regeneration scheme, a decision Newby described as knocking down the heart of the gay village. The quarter's businesses, hotels and charities had, by and large, built the place themselves.

2023: a change of approach

In August 2023 Blackpool Council unveiled a new vision. It proposed to formally recognise and celebrate the existing gay village around parts of Queen Street and Dickson Road, building on the cluster of gay-friendly bars, venues and guest houses already there. There would be no formal label imposed from above. Instead the area would carry a motto: "Be who you want to be."

The idea had support from the start. The partners included the North Shore Business Group, the sexual health and LGBTQ+ charity Renaissance, a local LGBT+ community group, the hoteliers' group BAGS, Blackpool Pride Festival and the local ward councillors. Newby, by then in his seventies, welcomed it, pointing out that Blackpool had always had a gay village and that the council was now leading the way where once it had stood in the way.

A survey and focus groups followed in the autumn of 2023 to shape the plans.

2024: the action plan

On 22 January 2024 the council's executive approved the Be Who You Want To Be action plan. Its stated aims were to celebrate Blackpool's long LGBTQ+ heritage, make the neighbourhood a place where people could be themselves and socialise without the risk of homophobic or other discriminatory abuse, catalyse the regeneration of the area, and help build an inclusive culture across the wider town.

The plan grouped its actions into themes:

• Public realm: streetscape, greening, lighting and Illuminations features.
• Safety and security: a CCTV review, Street Angels, a night-time safe space, Ask for Angela, a safer taxi scheme, bystander training and extra patrols.
• Arts, heritage and culture: an LGBTQ+ exhibition at the Grundy Art Gallery and activity for LGBT History Month and Pride.
• Young people: a youth survey and a youth-led audit of the area.
• Health and wellbeing: work on LGBTQ+ health needs, a trans needs assessment, a plan for the Fast-Track Cities HIV commitment and a review of sexual health and PrEP services.
• Business, marketing and governance: promotion, a café-culture concept, a friends group, an LGBTQ+ forum and a board linked to the High Street Accelerator programme.

Rainbows on the road

The first visible change came in March 2024, when two zebra crossings on Dickson Road were painted in Progress Pride colours, with the junction at Springfield Road next in line, and rainbow wraps went up on the lamp posts. One of the crossings was vandalised the day after it was installed, and the council referred it to the police. The rainbow crossings have since become one of the most photographed sights in the quarter.

Over the following two years more changes arrived: Progress Pride street signs, colourful planters designed by House of Wingz along Lord Street, Queen Street, Dickson Road and Springfield Road, more than thirty new lighting columns, and a new CCTV camera on Lord Street, installed after feedback from residents and young people. In July 2025 three public-access defibrillators were fitted on Lord Street and Dickson Road after the community raised around £4,000 towards them.

The official tourism board began promoting the area as the Rainbow Quarter, claiming the highest concentration of LGBTQ+ venues in the UK.

2026: Be You

In January 2026 the council rebranded the programme as Be You and approved two new quality marks:

• The Be You Business Quality Mark, developed by the council's public health team and Renaissance, for bars, clubs, restaurants, hotels and shops that pass an audit showing they are safe and welcoming. Approved venues can display a Be You window graphic.
• The Be You Youth Provider Quality Mark, led by United Youth Alliance and shaped by the Young LGBTQ+ Social Action Group, for organisations that support LGBTQ+ young people.

At the two-year mark the council reported that the quarter had 29 LGBTQ+ venues, fifteen of them new, which had created around 52 jobs. A new community body, the Blackpool Rainbow Alliance, was launched to support LGBTQIA+ people across Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre. Its chair, Shaun Pickup, who is also community lead for Be You, said the aim was real, visible change rather than words.

The first street party

The clearest sign of the quarter's new confidence came at Pride in June 2026. The Blackpool Rainbow Alliance and more than twenty local businesses organised the first Rainbow Quarter Street Party, running along Lord Street from Springfield Road to Cocker Street. Su Pollard opened it, more than two dozen performers took part, and around 3,000 people came over two days. Planning for a bigger party in 2027 started almost immediately.

Heritage at the heart of it

From the beginning, heritage was part of the plan, which included an LGBTQ+ exhibition at the Grundy Art Gallery. Alongside it, the community-led We're Still Here! project is building Blackpool's first permanent collection of LGBTQ+ heritage and is planning two exhibitions for 2027, at the Grundy and at Showtown. Basil Newby's suggestion of a blue plaque on the site of the original Flamingo is the kind of idea the quarter's supporters would love to see.

What still needs doing

Be You has brought real change, but it is a work in progress. Not every item in the action plan has a published progress report, there is no single overall budget figure, and the area still sees occasional assaults, a reminder of why the safety work matters. Its success will depend on the same people who built the village in the first place: the bar owners, hoteliers, performers, volunteers and visitors who keep coming back.

Venue counts, schemes and street works change over time, so check the latest before you plan a visit.