WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter
Commons Transparency
It is a shame Oli Smith sent his letter to HIP (Jess Steele: Questions to be Asked) before the public meeting held by Hastings Commons Community Land Trust, because a lot of his questions were answered there. Oli is right that the web of organisations that make up the Hastings Commons is confusing, and that transparency over use of public funds is important, but his allegations about Jess’s abuse of public money are both serious and unfounded. As the Finance and Investment lead for the Trust, Bob Thust described the network of organisations that make up the Hastings Commons – an organisation way bigger than its pioneering Chief Executive Officer, Jess Steele.
I first met Jess in 2004 when I was chair of the town centre community forum. She attended a community walk and was drawn to the White Rock area. When the pier closed in 2006, her input into Hasting Pier and White Rock Trust was essential in raising the funds which saved it. She is a ‘social entrepreneur’ who cares about buildings and the communities that live and work in them. Not from a monied background, she is undeniably successful at applying for public funds. Local projects she has been involved with have benefited the people of Hastings and St Leonards far more than those of SeaSpace/SeaChange, which have sucked up significant public funds and may well deserve a forensic accountant’s eye.
In 2015 I was one of the first tenants in Rock House. I witnessed the ‘phased redevelopment’ – an innovative way to repurpose a semi-derelict building on a small budget. I also saw the chaos when private developers bought the OB next door.
I have just designed a book about the OB to mark its centenary. It covers the building’s 60 years as a printworks, then 35 years of dereliction with 13 owners and multiple planning applications granted, including permission for demolition and to build a monstrous low-budget hotel. Without Jess, the OB would still be derelict – or worse, have been demolished – causing structural damage to surrounding buildings.
The final section covers the renovation of the OB, exploring self-renewing neighbourhoods and the ‘ecosystem’ of organisations working together. It even includes a list of the grants and loans awarded.
The book will be launched on 20 March. If anyone is interested in learning more about the history of the OB – and the more recent history of Hastings Commons – it is highly recommended reading.
Erica Smith
from our website
Hastings Commons
Following your article: Jess Steele, Community Entrepreneur and subsequent comments, it is difficult to see how Hastings Commons is a worthwhile project to benefit the people of Hastings.
The Commons commercial and residential properties, in various stages of refurbishment and occupancy, comprise around 65,000 sq feet. Commercial rents in Hastings are around £15 psf. Across all the properties this would provide an annual income of nearly £1 million a year and a capital value of up to £12 million. However, some properties are incomplete and comprise good and poor space, so their value may only be around £7 million.
Apparently some £28 million has been raised in grants and gifts by the company Jericho Road to create and run Hastings Commons. Further explanation is required to show the rationale of turning £28 million of real money into a property portfolio worth just 25% of that. Is there any evidence of charitable or social benefits to the community to justify this difference?
Hastings Commons Network Ventures is owned equally by Jericho Road, Meanwhile Space and Hastings Commons. The aim is for the latter to take 100% control. For this it will need to generate sufficient income from rents and raise commercial finance to buy out the other two parties. Using the rough estimate of value, the Commoners would need to take out commercial loans to pay Jericho Road and Meanwhile Space more than £2 million each. This is on top of fees and income they have already had throughout the protracted development process.
Jess Steele said “Some find it so hard to believe that people might do things that aren’t just for themselves” – on these figures there is an understandable concern. Why is it that £28 million of grants and gifts enables the Hastings Commons to own a portfolio of properties with a net value of just £2.3 million and saddled with additional commercial debt, just so the original facilitators can be paid out a similar amount each?.
From the website. Name and address supplied
Letter
Setting the Record Straight
In response to my article in HIP 244 Suppressing Dissent you published a letter from a Labour Party member Mike Southon.
He had lived and worked outside the borough for many years and recently re-emerged in order to secure a prospective councillor position in my own ward, Maze Hill. He asked me, as a former party member, to support him, but now attacks me for wanting to vote Independent in local elections. He also criticises me for wearing ‘rosie’ coloured spectacles because of Neil Kinnock’s position on the 1984 miner’s strike.
He misunderstands. I was under no illusions in 1984 when, with fellow press officer Monica Foot, I surreptitiously collected money and food for the miners’ families. My cynicism about the Labour leadership was reinforced when I had to introduce Neil Kinnock and Arthur Scargill together on a stage in front of journalists: they refused to speak to each other and would not even shake hands. Ten years before joining the Labour Party Press Office, during the 1972 strike, I made such good friends with Kent miners that they invited me to go down Betteshanger Colliery in Kent.
That was something to tell my uncle Sam Hartshorn about. Sam, a former miner in Chesterfield, was married to my aunt Alice Brocklehurst. Sam had been lauded for managing to save some of his mates during the terrible Markham Colliery disaster in 1938 when 79 men lost their lives. Kinnock’s betrayal of the miners is personal and something I will never forget, although I was fond of Kinnock’s late wife Glenys, who had more integrity than most.
Rosie Brocklehurst
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