More than £4.5m will be made available to 12 English seaside towns in the latest round of funding from the Government’s Sea Change programme.

The Sea Change initiative aims to boost visitor numbers around the coastline by reinvigorating struggling resorts by investment in towns' culture and heritage.

The latest round of funding includes a £1m grant for Berwick-upon-Tweed, which will help restore the iconic 18th century Dewar’s Lane Granary building as an exhibition space and youth hostel.

Bexhill-on-Sea will also receive £1m to continue the next stage of their successful seafront improvement scheme, and a £480,800 grant for Littlehampton will help with major design-led improvements along the seafront. A further nine projects will also receive funding.

This is the second tranche of grants to be awarded in the first year of the £45m, three-year DCMS-funded programme, being led by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE).

In August, the first large grant awards were confirmed for Blackpool, Torbay and Dover. The funding announced today is for the smaller open application grants which can be up to £1m.

The three-year Sea Change programme will run until 2011, giving £15m each year to seaside resorts.

The scheme is led by CABE working with the Regional Development Agencies, English Heritage, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund.