County Cuts Slam Hastings
PAUL McLAUGHLIN
East Sussex County Council has confirmed plans to cut almost £4m from Adult Social Care and Health services next year. Julia Hilton, the Leader of Hastings Borough Council, said she was shocked at the scale of the cuts and warned that the 88% cuts to the countywide housing floating support contract and 100% of funding to two supported housing services within Hastings, would lead to “more evictions” across the town with “more people pushed into rough sleeping.”
Cllr Hilton said these services work closely with Hastings Borough Council officers on preventing homelessness. The floating support services prevented the homelessness of 240 households in Hastings last year, and the supported accommodation provides supported homes to 31 Hastings residents who would otherwise be homeless. Without these services, she said it could cost Hastings Borough Council £15m in additional temporary accommodation costs over the next four years.
The Council Leader said that whilst she recognised the financial plight the county council was facing, its response to seek short-term savings was “short-sighted and would create far more cost in future years.”
Labour’s Trevor Webb, who like Cllr Hilton is both a county and borough councillor, strongly opposes the cuts to the housing-related floating support. As a former Hastings Borough Council housing portfolio holder, he says he “knows just how important it is and how much fellow councillors, officers and housing and health professionals value the service and the trust that has been built up over years from the vulnerable clients who use the service.”
The decision to cut funding will be reviewed at the ESCC People’s Scrutiny Committee on 17 March.
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