Ten-Year Plan to ‘Transform’ Hastings?
HUGH SULLIVAN
Cleaner, greener and safer streets. Revitalised community spaces. Restored heritage assets. Modern sports, leisure and play facilities.
These are the things which matter most to the people of Hastings, according to the findings of the town’s Neighbourhood Board – and what it declares that its newly formulated regeneration plan, sent to government last week for approval, will provide.
The Board, consisting of local politicians, community organisers and business leaders – including MP Helena Dollimore, East Sussex College CEO Rebecca Conroy and Deputy Leader of Hastings Borough Council Julia Hilton – has consulted over several months with local residents, businesses and community organisations, receiving around 4,000 responses. The resultant plan has not been released, but a press statement was issued last week announcing that it proposes the spending of up to £20 million of promised government funding over ten years so as to “transform Hastings’ streets and neighbourhoods” as a reflection of these stated priorities. The programme has the re-branded title, ‘Pride in Place’.
No specific projects are mentioned in the press statement, nor indeed spelt out in the plan itself, according to HIP’s sources. But the Board committed at its meeting on 24 November to invest the following yearly sums:
- Up to £250,000 “to increase pride in our streets”
- Up to £500,000 “to increase pride in our neighbourhoods”
- Up to £1million “to increase pride in our town”
It describes these as applying to “small”, “medium” and “large” prospective schemes across the town which “will start to make a real difference to where people live”.
Kevin Boorman, the independent chair of the Board, describes the plan as “a Hastings for everyone, and that’s exactly what we want”. He said he regarded the 4,000 responses to the consultation as “an amazing figure… ranging from improved sports and leisure facilities and play areas through to more litter bins and better bus shelters.
“We are committed to making improvements across the town, to benefit as many people as possible. Once we have heard back from the government, hopefully early in the New Year, the real work starts, as we put these words into action.”
The promise to offer £20m for regeneration of Hastings over a ten year period was originally made by Rishi Sunak’s government in 2023 as part of its ‘levelling up’ programme under the title ‘Our Long Term Plan for Towns’. It was rebranded by the incoming Labour administration last year as a ‘Plan for Neighbourhoods’ with a different mix of capital and revenue spending, then received another re-branding in September this year as the ‘Pride in Place programme’.
Ms Dollimore claimed last week that “Whilst previous schemes saw taxpayers’ money wasted on the short-lived Owens, this time we have the chance to improve our town by making the big decisions ourselves, not letting other people make decisions for us.” This seems a re-writing of history. The allocation of funds, including to Owens, under Boris Johnson’s Town Deal programme has been administered by a board whose membership overlaps with the Hastings Neighbourhood Board and is similarly staffed by Borough Council officers. Perhaps what she means is that she wasn’t involved last time round.
One genuine difference, however, seems to be that, while the Town Deal focussed to a large extent on Hastings town centre, the new ‘Pride in Place’ initiative will aim to transform the whole borough – like the old Heineken ad, refreshing the parts that other programmes couldn’t reach.
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