WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter
Streets of HASTINGS
Dear HIP
As a visitor from western Canada, I am surprised at the poor condition of the streets and roads in St Leonards and Hastings (and other parts of East Sussex).
Huge potholes too numerous to count, massive cracks in the pavement, and small patches on top of patches, when a whole street should be re-paved.
Does your city or regional council not think infrastructure is a core function of running a municipality? What’s gone wrong? According to friends I visit here, you seem to pay similar taxes to those I pay in Canada. I live in a city with a population of approx. 96,000, so I think that’s a fair comparison to Hastings/St Leonards. However, the condition of your streets and roads are on a par with developing world countries.
Concerned regards,
Fraser Lee
Letter
Fundamentally Flawed Parking
Dear Hip.
Are the proposed new residents parking permits a benefit or a liability?
In the last issue (22nd May) Paul Mclaughlin wrote that many traders blame the cost of seaside parking as one of the main causes of a decline in visitor numbers.
I have written to the council formally objecting to the new residents’ parking scheme which appears fundamentally flawed, financially punitive to residents, and poorly targeted at the actual parking pressures experienced in this area.
For many UK towns and cities, residential parking permits have brought genuine benefits – especially in areas overwhelmed by commuter parking or heavy daytime visitor traffic. But in seaside towns like St Leonards and Hastings the picture is far more complicated. Places built around theatres, pubs, restaurants, tourism and narrow Victorian streets often face different parking pressures, particularly in the evenings when many permit restrictions no longer apply.
The experience across Britain suggests that permit schemes work best where the problem is clearly daytime commuter parking – but in mixed leisure and seaside economies like St Leonards and Hastings, the results are often far more controversial and divisive.
Schemes can simply shift parking into neighbouring roads, reduce visitor numbers, damage independent businesses and leave residents paying annual fees without any guarantee of finding a space.
I believe that in the wrong place, like Hastings and St Leonards, Residents Parking Permits can become the first step to a decline in visitor numbers and closure for local business.
Please object! it is easy and if you don’t, they will claim people didn’t care enough:
consultation.eastsussex.gov.uk/economy-transport-environment/hastings-newpermitzones-2026/
Nick Bloomfield
Letter
Lucrative but Disappointing Odyssey
Dear HIP.
I was astonished that the public was charged to view the show Odyssey at The Hastings Contemporary – most open-submission shows do not charge an admission fee. Nor did the Contemporary need to as this much-anticipated exhibition attracted more than 2,500 entries and so probably amassed more than £50,000 in entry fees alone.
But what will happen to this money? Will it, as I hope, be allocated to subsidise Hastings’ arts or will it ’go west’ into Sussex Contemporary Ltd? This type of money generation is desperately needed for arts programmes, events and workshops in the town. Perhaps the Hastings Contemporary should strike out on its own and represent the incredible number of high-quality, acclaimed artists and musicians that live here, a resource that Hastings consistently fails to recognise.
I do realise this show was open to all in Sussex. Yet, Hastings Contemporary needs to identify more strongly with its talented arts community, as many of the shows in this gallery have imported a “big name” that has a tenuous “connection” with Hastings but perhaps has a connection with the curator?
Personally, I thought the Odyssey exhibition was disappointing. There was some good work on show, but a majority of the works felt thin and decorative, and adherence to the Odyssey theme was tentative, if not dubious. Furthermore, I felt the judging panel was too female-dominated (6 women and 1 male media personality), which seemed to result in around 70% of the works on show being made by women.
I take on board that women have been historically underrepresented in visual art, and in recent years this has continued to be addressed. Yet, I left the show feeling that as a male I had been the victim of some sort of inverted sexism, I guess a feeling most female artists are very familiar with!
As you may have gathered I am a male art reject.
Yours faithfully,
Sour grapes
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