NEWS IN BRIEF
Lottery Grant for Trinity
Holy Trinity Church, the building in the centre of the Trinity Triangle off Robertson St, has been awarded a grant of £4.5 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The money will be spent not only on restoration works to the exterior but in developing the interior to create more flexibility. It follows an earlier grant of £34,000 from the Heart of Hastings Community Land Trust to develop the lottery application.
Founded in 1857, the building is Grade II*-listed. According to church records, Trinity’s average weekly congregation had dwindled to around 55 adults and a single child in 2014 but had grown back up to 338 adults and 120 children by 2023 after a new leadership team took it over.
Music and Theatre at Horse & Groom: Official
The Horse and Groom pub at the top of Norman Rd is set to offer regular live music and theatre performances in the future after succeeding in a planning application to put former workshop premises at the rear to this use. Many local residents will be aware of informal entertainments being provided in this space over previous years, accessed through the bar rooms, but these will now have formal sanction.
Some local residents had raised concerns over potential noise impact, and a similar planning application made in 2014 had been turned down for this reason. However, councillors on the Hastings Borough Council planning committee accepted this time that sound insulation upgrades and time restrictions (events to conclude by 11pm) could be imposed as planning conditions to limit disturbance.
Depot Decision Boosts Ashford Rail Prospects
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR), which regulates access to the railway network and licenses the operators of railway assets, has approved an application by Virgin Trains to share Temple Mills railway depot in East London with Eurostar.
Kent County Council leader Linden Kemkaran said last week that the ORR’s decision “paves the way for competition”, which she is confident will restore international railway services to Ashford. Hastings & Rye MP Helena Dollimore, who previously described the empty international terminal at the Kent station as a “symbol of decline and neglect”, said that the decision “marks a major step towards reopening it, [which] would boost our local Sussex and Kent economy by over £2.5 billion.” She urged Virgin and its founder Sir Richard Branson “to seize this opportunity”.
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