Howard you said "i have not seen a design like that before on a seafront."
There may be a good reason for that!!!
The simple fact is that. as a whole, there is no consistency of design taking in the whole promenade. Whatever your tastes to have a nice new half disconnencted from the other half, looking old, worn and even with different colour tarmac does not add to a good experience.
As I said, in my view, the look of the renovated section is messy and a big disappointment to say the least. I do not think that finishing the turfing will change that.