A Hastings Community of Resilience
DR REBECCA SINKER
“This is the least extreme climate you will experience in your lifetime.”
That was the warning from Prof. Hayley Fowler, delivered in the People’s Emergency Briefing (PEB) film screened for the first time in Hastings in August at the Observer Building. The question on the table: How resilient is Hastings?
Community Focused: Watching the PEB film at the Observer Building in August
On the evidence of this summer, not very. Five heatwaves. Wildfires encroaching on neighbouring towns. July the driest on record, and drought persisting despite recent rainstorms – all against eye-watering costs of food and fuel.
IT’S NOT ONE DAY, IT’S NOW
Hastings Mayor Paula Warne posted after the screening: “We are in a climate emergency and it’s not ‘one day’, it’s now. We’re seeing flooding like never before, we’re seeing wildfires on our doorstep – and when I say on our doorstep I mean Telham in Battle, Abbotswood in Eastbourne. We need to make changes to our daily lives and we are going to have to adapt to a different climate because it feels now like there’s no going back.”
El Niño, the natural sea-surface temperature rise in the east Pacific, is forecast to reach unprecedented levels this year. At home, frequent storms are forecast, while friends and family across the globe will suffer heatwaves, drought and typhoons that drastically affect world harvests and essential goods supply chains.
WHAT IS THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY BRIEFING?
The PEB film builds on the first National Emergency Briefing in Westminster (November 2025), where 1,200 MPs, faith leaders and sector leaders heard experts in nine fields explain how a heating climate will affect health, national security, nature, food production and the economy. The film presents edited extracts intercut with public responses, talking to Chris Packham. With over 5,000 community screenings nationwide, the goal now is a TV broadcast to the nation.
HOLDING COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS
More than 500 people have seen the film at screenings in Ore, Old Town and St Leonards. Attendees from organisations already doing vital local work included Energise Sussex Coast, Hastings Voluntary Action, Hastings Emergency Action Response Team, Hastings Area Southern Housing Tenants Association, Hastings Aging Network, Safe Havens, Clean Water Action Group and Hastings Community of Sanctuary. Local MP Helena Dollimore, councillors, faith leaders and emergency service officers also attended.
The MP for Hastings and Rye said: “The learnings from the briefing are clear and make me very concerned. We are living it now with our fourth heatwave this summer. Our reservoirs are drying up and I am worried about the risk of more water outages. I’m also very concerned about the possibility of wildfires.”
The film presents stark truths but is not without hope, offering changes we can still enact to curb the worst effects.
NEXT STEPS TO ACTION
Under the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), The Sussex Resilience Forum, which includes the emergency services, utilities, Red Cross, ESCC and all borough councils, have drawn up emergency response plans. A determined online search uncovers this information.
But Hastings also needs a resilience network addressing adaptation for extreme heat, floods or drought, food self-sufficiency, health and renewable energy at community level. It must be locally focused and inclusive, drawing on lived experience and grasping the particular needs, challenges and opportunities in our area to develop coordinated, practical local resilience measures.
The common thread through all the PEB conversations was the need for a more connected, self-reliant and prepared local community. As Jane Ripley noted: “There is a strong community here in Hastings and people will step into the breach as we saw in Covid.” The climate crisis affects us all, but not equally – some are and will be harder hit, so we must act collectively now.
Our volunteer-led Hastings PEB Group ([email protected]) is holding a follow-up event on November 8, open to anyone who has seen the film and who wants to help organise a resilience network. Book here: tickettailor.com/events/nebhastings/2486104
If you agree the PEB should be broadcast in a televised briefing to the nation, please write to our MP: [email protected]
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Why broadcast on television. You can broadcast right now for free on YouTube, Video, etc. And it’s likely to reach more people than TV in this modern streaming media world we live in!