WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter
Housing, Not Amusements
Dear HIP
With reference to Year of Shutdown for Owens Refurbishment (HIP 241), what Hastings needs is housing, not a huge indoor games complex. How many one and two bedroom flats could be fitted into the 77,000 sq. ft. of the old Debenhams building?
Housing for local people, at reasonable rents. Not flats for sale to speculators or Airbnb or once-a-year holiday homes for the DFL crowd.
If these CFEC/Owens people are so committed to Hastings, perhaps they should rethink their business model and use the multi-million pound investment for what is really needed. A longer term investment perhaps, but a regular income stream from reasonable rents.
Yes, Hastings is a town by the sea, but it doesn’t mean we have to have amusement arcades everywhere. Surely tourists should be coming for the seaside, the beach, the change of scenery. Not to spend all day indoors!
Stuart Denham
from our website
Public Services Needed
With reference to Facing the Financial Facts in HIP 243, the moving of the sports facilities is one thing, and it sounds as though a suitable new site has been found. Fantastic. However, if a significant number of new houses are to be built on the Horntye site, what impact will that have on the local area at large? The roads are already congested and poorly maintained, schools are full, and dentists/ doctors are all over-capacity. Does the Council or Trust have plans to invest in public services to accommodate the extra people living in the Horntye area?
Ben Nice
from our website
Life-affirming memorial
How very moving and life-affirming was the Holocaust Memorial Event at the White Rock Theatre [see David Tasker’s preview in HIP 243]. Thank you, David, for an excellent and powerful presentation of your mother’s miraculous story of survival. Never again.
Clive Agran
from our website
Welcome Rebellion
Thank you for raising this very important issue, Grace (Housing Rebellion in Hastings, HIP 243). We have to move away from the idea of demolition and towards compulsory purchase to refurbish at affordable rents with tenant management.
The only new builds should be zero-carbon, mostly rented co-housing on brownfield sites. Stop selling off leisure or already scarce wildlife plots to greedy developers.
Housing Rebellion is a welcome wind of change.
Ruth Gregory
from our website
What about St Leonards?
In response to Deal Revealed (HIP 242), I am glad we got the funds, but the Town Deal is mostly about the town centre. There is nothing being offered to St Leonards – let alone West St Leonards. Is it any wonder that groups outside Hastings town centre do not bother to submit applications for innovative uses of those funds any more?
Bryan Fisher
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