Sandy Ezekiel gazed over the deserted beach stretching towards Margate and remarked, somewhat optimistically, “When the sun is out, it is just like St Tropez.”

It would take a visitor with an imagination greater than the artist Tracey Emin, the Kent town’s favourite daughter, to liken its dilapidated foreshore — consisting of rundown shops, fast-food outlets and derelict arcades — to the French Riviera.

The sentiments of Mr Ezekiel, the leader of Thanet council, which oversees the coastal area, are couched in an ambitious regeneration plan aimed at returning the once-booming seaside resort to its Victorian heyday.

Margate, regarded as an original British seaside town and immortalised by the artist J. M. W. Turner, plans to put its artistic heritage at the centre of its proposed regeneration.

Times Archive, 1923: Margate Ho! with Cockney shipmates

Let the man who travels to Margate go by steamer and his journey will be touched with magic

• Letter to the editor: Margate, 1869

• Attracting visitors to Margate, 1936

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A £17.5 million Turner gallery, showcasing the works of the artist and his contemporaries, will open in 2011 and the authorities believe that it will reinvigorate the town in the same way that the Tate Gallery restored some artistic credibility to St Ives in Cornwall.

The town comes under the national spotlight next week when it is the subject of the BBC television programme The Apprentice. Sir Alan Sugar will ask the contestants to rebrand the town.

Despite its popularity in the early 20th century a spiralling crime rate and increased accessibility to the Continent resulted in a tourist exodus — and the town was left to decay.

Among strategies to attract visitors and address the poor reputation of Margate, one team on The Apprentice will try to attract the “pink pound” — the affluent gay community.

A coalition of public agencies is already spending tens of millions of pounds revamping the town, however. Mr Ezekiel told The Times: “We don’t need The Apprentice to tell us what to do. We’re already well on our way to regeneration and we’ve got big plans of our own. But we certainly welcome the publicity as it will put the spotlight on what we’re doing. And if they’ve got some good ideas we’ll take a look at them.”

The Margate Renewal Partnership hopes that high rents in the creative sector of the East End in London, coupled with the lure of the seaside, will entice artists and designers to relocate. More than £60 million will be spent to bring in businesses and visitors.

As well as the gallery the seafront is to be revamped and partially pedestrianised to try to create a café culture.

There are also plans to restore Dreamland, the amusement arcade that was once one of the most popular attractions in the country. It closed after an arson attack, but there are plans to reopen it as a heritage fairground.

“The beach and the bay are still Margate’s jewels but we need to diversify our visitor offer,” Mr Ezekiel said.

“Cultural tourists and people in that socioeconomic bracket will spend more. We’re not losing all the old fish and chip shops but we want to create a contemporary offer as well.”

Those behind the bid to reinvent Margate, and the contestants on The Apprentice, certainly have their work cut out.

The town’s esplanade is dotted with fast-food outlets, deserted arcades and sex shops. Gangs of youths wander the streets and the shabby town centre is dotted with boarded-up or rundown stores. Many of the galleries and creative start-ups were closed when The Times visited.

It was a far cry from when Margate was a thriving haven for holidaying Londoners during the Victorian and Georgian eras.

In 1841 steam boat excursions to the town were so popular that there were six companies for the Margate passenger traffic.

It has long been considered a dumping ground for itinerants, however, and more than 340 people join its social housing waiting list every month. Local newspapers often carry reports on knife crime and assaults.

Investment in the region is faltering in the recession. Plans for a sea-life centre have been dropped and there are concerns that a wind farm and business park, which would create thousands of jobs, may not go ahead.

Derek Harding, the programme director at the Margate Renewal Partnership, was optimistic. He pointed out that crime had dropped after a zero-tolerance policy was enforced on the seafront. Creative industries, he said, were key to the future because they were one of the country’s biggest growth areas.

Some residents remain unconvinced and may yet prove the biggest obstacle to a revival. Numerous long-time residents approached by The Times were pessimistic about attempts to turn their town into an arts haven.

Maureen Collington, who has lived in Margate for more than 20 years, described the approach by the council as a disgrace. “They’re wasting all this money on art and it’s not what people want. Margate is proper seaside. But they’ve let it die.”

A young mother shopping in the high street was even more abrupt. The woman, who would not give her name, said: “That Turner centre — it’s the biggest load of f***ing rubbish that I’ve ever heard of. What a waste of money. Most of our 15-year-olds are illiterate, they couldn’t give a stuff about going to an art gallery.”

Margate the grim

— The social housing waiting list is joined by 340 people a month; the town is known as “Benefits-on-sea”

— Unemployment stands at 8.3 per cent, compared with a Kent average of 3.2 per cent

— Benefit payments are received by more than 21 per cent of the working population (15,687 people)

— 23.4 per cent of children live in a household where no person has a job

— In 2007 the police uncovered remains of two teenagers at the former home of the serial killer Peter Tobin

— The town was notorious for mob violence between mods and rockers in the 1960s

— The area still has a reputation for crime. Local newspapers often contain reports of murders, stabbings and robberies

— There were 759 victims of violent crime in the Thanet district last year, but that compares with 992 in 2008

Margate the great

— The beautiful coastline — and the sunsets — inspired the artist J. M. W. Turner. A £17.5 million gallery, showcasing his work and that of his contemporaries will open in 2011

— Tracey Emin was brought up in Margate and inspired by it. Her 2005 autobiography Strangeland chronicled the abuse that she suffered there

— Margate was the first resort to have donkey rides (1890) and the first to introduce deckchairs (1898)

— The defunct Dreamland Amusement Park on the foreshore was once one of the country’s most loved attractions. There are plans to reopen it with heritage rides

— The journey from Margate to Victoria station, in London, takes just over 90 minutes and a faster train link is planned

— The town boasts the second-oldest theatre in the country, the Theatre Royal in Addington Street, dating from 1787

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