Gizza Job!
Love Hastings Business Improvement Manager JOHN BOWNAS says the Local Plan is about more than just homes, it’s about jobs, and we need to get it right
Bexhill Jobs Fair
The consultation on the Hastings Local Plan has now closed. While public debate understandably focused on how many homes we can build, the other side of the equation – jobs – was largely left out in the cold.
If you want to understand Hastings’ future, this is the document you are supposed to read. It is the blueprint that determines where we live, where we work, and how the town evolves over the coming decades. Yet beneath its thousands of pages of policy and maps lies a troubling disconnect between ambition and reality. Before diving into the numbers, it is worth saying clearly: this does not have to be a story of doom and gloom.
Hastings faces structural challenges common to coastal towns; its ‘end of the line’ transport links and limited catchment area mean we cannot rely on a single major employer riding in to transform the economy. But there is a genuine opportunity in front of us. If the Local Plan is aligned with a homegrown, demand-led skills economy, we have a realistic path to regeneration. That requires a planning framework that actively supports this shift, not one that relies on vague aspirations.
At present, the central issue is a simple but significant mismatch between the number of jobs the plan promises and the type of employment space it allocates. The plan identifies 51,297 square metres of employment space across the borough, claiming this will support 4,150 new jobs. That equates to around 12.3 square metres per worker – densities typical of tightly packed office environments. Yet the same plan emphasises a shift toward manufacturing and industrial uses, where realistic densities are closer to 36–47 square metres per employee.
NOWHERE LOCAL TO WORK
Apply those real-world figures and the projected job numbers fall sharply. Instead of over 4,000 jobs, the likely outcome is closer to 1,300. This matters. If we overestimate job creation, we risk building homes for a workforce that has nowhere local to work, while also safeguarding land for employment uses that may never materialise.
We have seen this before. The long-running employment developments at Bexhill and Queensway were built on similar assumptions. In practice, they have delivered only a fraction of the jobs originally promised. Land that was expected to attract office-based employers has instead struggled to meet demand, reflecting a mismatch between planning assumptions and the realities of the local economy.
Rather than repeating this pattern, the Local Plan should take a more flexible and pragmatic approach. Sites that have remained vacant for years without serious interest should be reconsidered for housing, particularly given the town’s acute housing pressures and rising use of temporary accommodation. Holding onto empty plots in the hope that demand will eventually appear is not a strategy.
But this raises an obvious question: where will the jobs come from? This is where the opportunity lies. Other coastal towns have shown that regeneration does not have to start with large employers, it can begin with skills. In places like Grimsby, investment in training created a workforce ready for the offshore wind sector before companies arrived.
Hastings is already taking steps in this direction. Investment in local education is beginning to build capacity in green technologies, including electric vehicle maintenance, solar installation, and retrofit skills. These are not abstract industries: they are practical, decentralised trades that can support local businesses and self-employment.
This matters because the demand is already here. Hastings has a large stock of older housing that will require significant upgrading as energy standards tighten. Retrofitting, insulation, and low-carbon heating are not future possibilities, they represent decades of local, ongoing work. A skilled workforce can live and work in the town, supporting the local economy directly.
TARGETED TRAINING
In this context, existing employment sites begin to make more sense. Rather than waiting for large external firms, they can provide space for small and medium-sized enterprises, workshops and service-based businesses linked to this growing skills base.
This approach should not be limited to green industries. Hastings has several other clear opportunities where targeted training could meet both local need and wider market demand.
One is heritage construction. The town’s historic buildings require specialist skills to maintain and upgrade them properly. There is a well-documented shortage of tradespeople trained in traditional methods such as lime plastering, stonemasonry, and heritage carpentry. Developing these skills locally would support conservation while creating high-value employment.
Another is water management and flood resilience. Hastings faces ongoing challenges from surface water flooding, coastal pressures, and aging infrastructure. Yet vocational training in this field is limited. There is a clear need for technicians who can install sustainable drainage systems, maintain flood defences, and support infrastructure upgrades. With major investment planned across the region, this represents a direct pipeline into stable, well-paid work.
The town can also benefit from the so-called ‘silver economy’. An older population creates sustained demand for health and social care services. By expanding training beyond entry-level care into more advanced and technical roles, Hastings can create secure employment while meeting a growing local need.
Finally, there is an opportunity in the creative and digital industries. Hastings already has a strong creative community. The next step is to connect this with higher-value digital skills – such as animation, game development, and e-commerce – allowing residents to access better-paid, flexible work that can be delivered locally or remotely.
Taken together, these sectors point toward a different model of economic development: one built on local strengths, practical skills, and distributed employment, rather than reliance on large external employers.
ECONOMIC INCONSISTENCIES IN LOCAL PLAN
The Local Plan, however, does not yet fully reflect this reality. Its broader economic policies contain similar inconsistencies. For example, it acknowledges a shortage of hotel accommodation, while proposing tighter regulation of short-term lets. Without a corresponding increase in hotel capacity, this risks undermining the tourism economy. Meanwhile, long-standing barriers to town centre investment remain insufficiently addressed.
There is also a more fundamental issue with how the plan has been presented. Thousands of pages of documentation, complex mapping systems, and gaps in supporting information make meaningful public engagement difficult. Consultation should enable participation, not discourage it.
Hastings needs a local plan that reflects its character, addresses its housing challenges, and builds on its real economic strengths. That means moving away from speculative assumptions about office-led growth and toward a more grounded strategy: one that links employment land to a growing, locally trained workforce.
What is currently proposed is not without merit, but it is flawed. By focusing on a skills-led, homegrown economy, Hastings has the opportunity to take a more realistic and resilient path forward. The hope now is that these issues have been heard, and that the final version of the plan gets both the numbers, and the strategy, right.
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Excellent article John.
In addition to the Green stuff, the UK and EU countries are about to embark on a massive investment in defence. GD is a major local employer with a proud history of innovation and success in Hastings since 1974. Hastings should strive to attract similar companies to boost local employment and training opportunities.