Lowestoft is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. As the most easterly UK settlement, it is 110 mi north-east of London, 38 mi north-east of Ipswich and 22 mi south-east of Norwich, and the main town in its district. The estimated population in the built-up area exceeds 70,000. Its development grew with the fishing industry and as a seaside resort with wide sandy beaches. As fishing declined, oil and gas exploitation in the North Sea in the 1960s took over. While these too have declined, Lowestoft is becoming a regional centre of the renewable energy industry.