News in Brief
Council Draft Plan
Hastings Borough Council (HBC) is inviting responses to its draft 2025-2030 Corporate Plan. The draft plan aims “to make a Hastings where residents are proud of their town and feel safe, valued and heard; where secure housing is available, affordable and energy efficient, and people can live healthy, fulfilling lives with the right skills and education to access good well-paid jobs.”
- The Council says there are five priorities and associated actions to meet those priorities and the overall aim.
- A financially stable council that delivers high quality, responsive services in cooperation with local people.
- Tackling homelessness and ensuring good quality housing.
- Take action to tackle the climate and nature crisis.
- Make Hastings somewhere that people have a greater pride in place.
- Tackle poverty and inequality.
HBC says the Corporate Plan is being developed in the context of significant financial constraints due to the continuing high levels of need for temporary accommodation. “We are determined to protect frontline services and where possible invest in our priorities. As a consequence, the budget savings proposals build on those that were agreed in February 2024. If you have comments or suggestions for the budget, please share those with us too.” The deadline for responses is 3 February.
For more information, search for ‘Corporate Plan’ at hastings.gov.uk
Bird Flu in Udimore
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has confirmed a case of avian influenza in poultry at a premises in Udimore, Rye. All poultry on the premises will be humanely culled, and Defra has set up a 3km protection zone around the premises as well as a 10km surveillance zone.
Birds within the 3km zone should be kept housed, not outdoors. No movement of birds or eggs should take place within, or out of, the 3km zone except under license,
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said that avian influenza is primarily a disease of birds and the risk to the general public’s health is very low. All keepers of birds with access to the open air are now required to register their premises. This does not include keepers of birds such as budgies, parrots, cockatiels and finches, where birds are fully housed and cannot fly free.
The government advises that anyone finding small numbers of dead wild birds can dispose of them in household or municipal bins, following the government’s safety advice. There is no need to report dead birds unless a large number of them are found in one place.
Dead wild birds can be removed and disposed by searching on GOV.UK or by calling 03459 335577. East Sussex County Council and other local partners are working with Defra to contain further spread.
Hastings Homes Repossessions
Hastings has the third highest home repossession rate in the South East, according to government data collated by removals comparison site Getamover. The data spans two decades and the figures were compared to the population of each local authority to determine the repossession rate per 100,000 households. Out of 71 local authorities, Hastings rated as the third highest with a total of 553 repossessions or an average of 607 per 100,000. The worst area for repossessions was Medway with an average of 658, while the area with the fewest repossessions was Folkestone and Hythe with just an average of 15. David Burrows, head of Getamover said, “Recent findings from Shelter and HSBC UK, carried out by YouGov, further underscore this crisis, revealing that 21% of individuals struggled with mortgage or rent payments in 2023, and 3.1 million people feared the possibility of eviction. Addressing these issues requires a multi-faceted approach, combining affordable housing initiatives with robust tenant protections to safeguard households.”
Shoplifting Crime Soars
Shoplifting offences in Hastings have risen by an alarming 44.5% in the past year, the latest crime statistics reveal. There were 818 incidents recorded in the 12-month period to November 2024, accounting for 7.5% of all crime in the town.
Meanwhile, claims by the County’s Police Commissioner that she is ‘successfully tackling anti-social behaviour’ have been refuted by the statistics. Katy Bourne, Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for East Sussex, says she has achieved “astonishingly high levels of success” with the Immediate Justice initiative and is continuing “to restore community confidence”.
But the official statistics, correlated by ‘Plumplot’, show that anti-social behaviour is up 6.7% in the Hastings area, amounting to 15.4% of all local crimes, and is 23% higher than the national average. In East Sussex overall anti-social behaviour was up nearly 12%.
The Immediate Justice scheme was initiated by the Sunak government in 2023 with people committing anti-social behaviour being made to repair the damage from 48 hours after their offence. Government funding for the two-year scheme has now ended, but the PCC says that she will continue it with money from her own budget.
Commissioner Bourne says that most current Sussex Immediate Justice (IJ) referrals are for youths aged 11-17. However, Sussex also had over 70 adults come through the programme. Typical offences are assaults, criminal damage and vandalism, theft from shops, drug possession and public order offences. By the end of 2024, the County IJ Taskforce had dealt with over 416 referrals with “incredibly high compliance rates for reparative activities”.
The latest crime statistics for Hastings published in January also show that possession of weapons increased by 18%, theft from the person by 10% and public order crime by 3.1%. On the positive side, bicycle thefts were down 62%, vehicle crime was down 23%, criminal damage and robbery by 11%, and violent crime was also down by 6.2%.
Source: plumplot.co.uk/City-Hastings-crime-stats
Hospital Patients Should Be Furious
Hospital rebuilding programmes in the Hastings area have been postponed until at least 2037, putting them in a group with the lowest priority of any in the country.
Eastbourne District, the Conquest and Bexhill Community hospitals are to be given makeovers costing between £1.5 and £2 billion, but work is highly unlikely to start for at least 12 years
The Department of Health said the national hospital rebuilding programme would be carried out in ‘waves of delivery’. The Hastings hospitals are at the bottom of wave three, with the longest delays.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting put the blame squarely on the last Conservative government: “the NHS was starved of capital in the 2010s, with £37 billion under-investment over the 2010s. This lack of investment meant the UK construction sector did not have the appetite and capacity to build the number of concurrent hospitals required to deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030 when this promise was made.
But he said the promises were never going to be kept by the last government. “ If I was shocked by the state of this programme, patients ought to be furious. They also desperately need new buildings and new hospitals.”
Traffic Chaos to Continue
The start of road works on the A259 at the junction of Denmark Place and Albert Road have caused long tailbacks and traffic disruption across much of the seafront. Drivers have been told to expect long delays in the area until 14 March when the works are due to be complete.
The roadworks are part of the Local Growth Fund Hastings and Bexhill Movement and Access Package. The works include the removal of the existing pedestrian islands on each approach to the junction, along with traffic signals and the installation of two new pedestrian islands, carriageway surfacing, drainage works and street lighting upgrades.
Balfour Beatty says it may be necessary to close Pelham Street for short periods of time during the works, which will add to the traffic chaos. Bus services may also be impacted during the overnight closures. Access to the road will be restricted for residents while the works are in progress.
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