Author Archives: HIP - Page 3
Strategy to Halt Biodiversity Decline
PAUL McLAUGHLIN East Sussex County Council (ESCC) has published a pioneering Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) designed to reverse biodiversity decline across East Sussex, and Brighton & Hove. As the…
Project Art Works Exhibition
studio INstall: Luke Bebb is open until the end of this week at the Project Art Works gallery. The space recreates the Project Art Works studio in Braybrooke Terrace where…
XMTR AudioArts Festival
JUDE MONTAGUE Sound tells stories. Lucia Scazzochio from Social Broadcasts (Resonance FM) has settled in St Leonards-on-Sea and set up an international festival, XMTR – a standard tech abbreviation for a radio…
Skinny Sunday Youth Fest
HANNAH DEEBLE A fresh wave of emerging talent will take over Studio 27 at Hastings White Rock Theatre on 23 August, as Skinny Sunday – the one‑day festival curated, produced and…
Contemporary up for Award?
NICK PELLING Something extraordinary has happened. Hastings Old Town has reached the last six of a European competition. To be more precise, Hastings Contemporary is the only UK gallery selected…
Local Pensioners Face 14-Year Prison Sentences
FERDUSARA ALI Two local pensioners, Nina Heaton from Hastings and Mary Law from Rother were arrested outside Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday (30 July), under Section 12 of the Terrorism…
Dutch toTake the VOC Amsterdam Home?
DAVID EP DENNIS An ever-present reminder of the power of storm and tide for the last 277 years, something sits at St Leonards. At the lowest tides of the year, when the…
The Pub That’s Bringing People Together
TESSA BOASE Ed Nash and Robbie Ormrod dreamed of creating a pub with community at its heart. Just five months in, the revamped Prince of Wales is proving that their…
News In Brief
National Emergency Briefing A group of local and community activists have come together to organise a viewing of the National Emergency Briefing film to highlight the need for the town…
Sad Tale of Sabastian Straw’s Shoes
MICK WAITE This year’s annual scarecrow competition in Battle invited entries including those inspired by countries and iconic figures. So Battle Town FC Runners’ entry was in honour of Sabastian…
Will You Be My Friend?
The BBC is looking for local children aged 5-8 who love making friends. The casting call is for a brand new six-part series about friendship for BBC One and iPlayer…
Coast is Queer
David Milton Forty-odd years ago, the most important gay artist of that era, John Yeadon, suggested that the then New Painting should be boldly confrontational and transgressive. His luminous depictions…
Tested by the Waters
Sea-swimmer, dog-owner, and relative newcomer INGRID ALLAN dips her toe in the waters around Hastings TOBY COLLINS With the recent Blue Flag and Seaside Award given to Marina and Pelham…
Wildfell Hall: Still Relevant
ELIZABETH ALLEN Anne Brontё was the youngest, least famous of the sisters. Yet hers is the novel that offers a stunning, overtly feminist, attack on the patriarchal structures of the…
Madagascar to Ethiopia – Hanitra and Haymanot
JUDE MONTAGUE AND VICTORIA KINGHAM Two extraordinary female African musicians, Hanitra Ranaivo from Madagascar and Haymanot Tesfa from Ethiopia, visit Hastings this summer. Hanitra Ranaivo and Jean-Marc Bontemps at the…
From the Ecclesiastical to the Educational
VICTORIA KINGHAM Joseph Stannard loves music and he loves film. When he isn’t carrying out his duties as deputy editor of long-running music magazine The Wire, he is investigating the…
Raining, Cats and Dogs
You may have wondered at the inspiration behind our long-running, consistently whimsical comic strip and about its creator. The real Lola and Bill are gratified to appear in these august…
Mozart and Movement
ELIZABETH ALLEN A highlight of the Battle Festival was Barefoot Opera’s performance of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, and it proved particularly well-suited to the distinctive Barefoot style. That style involves…
Perello Duoat the Beacon
Perello, the Liverpool-based guitar and vibes duo who enchanted their Kino-Teatr audience last summer, are back in Hastings on 7 August – this time at The Beacon. The Perello Duo:…
Convent Preservation is ‘Council Priority’
Following the fire at the former Convent of the Holy Child Jesus in Magdalen Road earlier this month reported in HIP 306, Hastings Borough Council issued a press release highlighting…
Fraud Charges to Proceed against ex-Southern Water Staff
JAMES ARNOLD-HO Former Southern Water boss Matthew Wright and three other former employees are facing prosecution over allegations that they manipulated wastewater test results. A High Court ruling on 22…
Senior Council Appointments
Hastings Borough Council (HBC) has appointed Rob Cottrill as its permanent Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service. The appointment was confirmed at the meeting of the Full Council on…
BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Establishment and Fascism
If We Tolerate This By Daniel TrillingPublished by Picador, 2026, rrp £ BY TIM BARTON This timely book is subtitled ‘How the British establishment made the Far Right respectable’. A…
CRICKET: Chastening Defeats for Priory
18 July: West Chiltington & Thakeham 231 for 9; Hastings & St Leonards Priory 181 all out25 July: Priory 237 all out; Haywards Heath 238 for 3 HUGH SULLIVAN After their encouraging win against…
Poetry Corner: Queen Victoria’s Hat
TIM BARLOW One day I’ll climb the Empire State with you To fly a flag and go down on one knee But just for now our love is clandestine This…
Activities for Young and Old
Active Hastings have a bumper calendar of low-cost or free sport sessions running throughout the town for young people this summer. Activities include: Ultimate Frisbee, Street Sport Roadshow, gym and circuit sessions,…
Mobile Upgradeand TV Interference in St Leonards
Mobile network services are currently being upgraded in St Leonards to boost speed, performance and coverage – but there is a chance these improvements may cause interference to TV received through an…
Hiroshima Day 2026
JOHN ENEFER On 6 August, the annual Hiroshima Day commemoration will take place in Alexandra Park, Hastings, as local people remember those who died from the first use of nuclear…
Protecting our Heritage
JULIA HILTON is Deputy Leader of Hastings Borough Council and the Portfolio Holder for Shaping Places and Regeneration. Here she replies to the recent article in HIP issue 304 headlined…
Trunks & Hunks in Hastings
MEL STEEL Cold-water men’s swimming group Trunks and Hunks will be taking their first Hastings dip this Sunday 2 August, meeting at 7am on Rock‑ A‑Nore beach. Trunks and Hunks…
Uproar as Council Scraps Food Vouchers for Kids
PAUL MCLAUGHLIN Reform UK-led East Sussex County Council (ESCC) has scrapped the automatic allocation of supermarket food vouchers for struggling families over the summer holidays. The decision has provoked outrage…
FOOTBALL: Chalmers and Black Return to the Pilot Field
IAN GRANT With preparations for the new season underway, Hastings United will be hoping to banish memories of the previous two, one of which ended in relegation and the other…
News in Brief
Homes for Hastings Hastings Council leader Glenn Haffenden has welcomed new affordable houses coming on stream with the first residents moving into new homes at Orbit’s Levett View development in…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter About Horsing Dear Editor I was interested to read the article by Peter Grey about Norman horses and how they were shipped across the sea. The image on the…
Welcome to the House of Fun
RACHEL ATTFIELD Walking along my road in Hastings recently, I found myself delighting in the abundance of plants growing through the cracks in the pavement. Dandelions, grasses, tiny flowers, plants…
Town Plans and Money Plans
The 410 pages of Hastings Council’s Draft Local Plan on the future of the town till 2041 attracted many criticisms earlier this year, and the Council meeting on 23 September…
Multilayered Meanings in Iranian Art
MARK SPELMAN on his new exhibition at Project 78 I first recall seeing what you could broadly call ‘Persian Miniatures’ when I was installing a show in Dammam, KSA. I…
Hastings writers contribute to anti-Trump anthology
‘Art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth’: words uttered by John F. Kennedy in 1963. TDS 2026 is an anthology of poetry and art…
Jamboranja Jamboram
ED BOXALL Do you have an imaginary friend? Or do you think you might be someone’s imaginary friend? Imaginary friends make our worlds bigger, wilder and full of new possibilities.…
BOO – Love, Loss, and Redemption
VICTORIA KINGHAM BOO – (Battery Operated Orchestra) make “highly charged electronica with incredibly addictive melodies” and are an independent act now based in St Leonards. Their new album Sea Views…