Archives for Opinion
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…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
From our website We Need Defence In response to We Won’t Be Silenced (HIP 303), I’m not for any war. However, we need defence, right? Or should we have no…
Convent for the Community
The SAVE THE CONVENT pressure group who want the St Leonards site turned into a Community Village give voice to their vision AI Projection of what the Convent could look like The…
Anti-Semitic Slurs Killed Corbynism
LEAH LEVANE I am really pleased that Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt is coming to Hastings on 25 June to talk about her amazing book about the years when Jeremy Corbyn was leader…
‘Medical’ Malaise
As the NHS fragments, one Hastings patient is becoming increasingly impatient with the service – or lack of – provided at primary care level Doctors used to make house calls…
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…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter More Palestine Protest Arrests Dear HIP, I fully support the views and actions expressed by C and by H in HIP 300. What Keir Starmer and two Home Secretaries…
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 DLWPBexhill Jobs Fair…
What’s The Plan?
Housing campaigner GRACE LALLY argues that a Local Plan for Hastings that promotes building more homes won’t increase supply of the secure affordable social housing that we really need Gemini…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter What are we paying for? Dear HIP, It seems that crime in our area is up and seemingly little or nothing done by police or the courts. Shoplifting in…
Taking on the NHS
ROSIE BROCKLEHURST FRANCZAK recounts the litany of health service errors that led up to the premature death of her husband Felicity LaurenceRosie and Paul Ultimately there is no headline story…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter MASSIVE WASTE OF MONEY The Panorama programme The Pothole Problem featuring ‘Juliet in Hastings’ lays it out very clearly: If you’re fixing potholes, your strategy has failed, because in…
Democracy Delayed is Democracy Denied
LEAH LEVANE It seems that many of our politicians thought that if elections were too inconvenient or expensive then they could just dispense with them. Thankfully this rather blasé approach…
Random Reorganisation
Former Hastings Council leader PETER CHOWNEY says repeated waves of piecemeal changeshave wrought havoc on local government in England Kent BarkerRoquebrun, France, population 606, has its own council The way…
Death by a Thousand Cuts
HEATHER GRIEF, Secretary of the Hastings Local History Group, castigates successive councils for their neglect and ugly development of the once elegant Summerfields and Bohemia estates Summerfields House demolished by…
Our Town, Our Council
Former Council Leader PETER CHOWNEY says that more than a millennia of devolved local government administration in Hastings is about to be abolished, concealed within a disingenuous wrapper called ‘local…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Community Resilience in Practice Dear HIP What a pleasure to read about the formation of HASTE - Hydraulic Activity Stabilisation Training Enterprise CIC - and the co-operation between experts,…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Palestine Action Ban Dear HIP, We the undersigned, residents of Hastings, Rye and St Leonards, have all been arrested under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, for publicly displaying signs bearing…
Flash of a Neon Light
This year’s Christmas tree in the town centre has proved extraordinarily controversial. Hundreds of posts on different social media sites have either praised or condemned it. Here Your Voice editor…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Graphically Inaccurate Dear HIP Splashing a huge graph supplied by Electoral Calculus for the Ashdown & Conquest and Hastings by-election (By-Election Battle Looms in HIP 288) is pretty reckless.…
Build it Yourself
Government proposals will see annual housing targets for Hastings increase from 490 to 722, but currently we are only managing just over 115 a year - KEN DAVIS proposes a…
Take a Chance on Me
ROBIN HOLTOM Arthur Ransome, the author of the well-known children’s series Swallows and Amazons, had a very interesting early life. Among other things, he was a reporter for the Manchester…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Poor Souls Dear HIP It seems that we are going backwards… there are empty properties, unused office buildings and yet people are in their sleeping bags lying on the…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Don’t Exaggerate Dear HIP, In response to James Prentice’s article New Party, Familiar Faces (HIP 283) which appears to be based on an interview with me, when in fact…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Don’t Exaggerate Dear HIP Helena Dollimore MP told HIP (Dollimore on Israel and Palestine Action in HIP 284): “Some of those holding placards in support of Palestine Action may…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
ALL ABOUT EVE This is a representative sample of the letters we have received in response to the ‘All About Eve’ Opinion piece in the last issue. Some have had…
HASTINGS STANDS WITH TRANS RIGHTS
East Sussex Women’s Rights Network may call the Supreme Court ruling a victory. For trans and non-binary people in our community, it is a brutal attack and we will not…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Hastings is an antiracist town Dear HIP, Last year the worst race riots in living memory swept the country, targeting refugees, Muslims and black and brown ; On 7…
All About Eve
Members of the EAST SUSSEX WOMEN’S RIGHTS NETWORK welcome the positive outcome of thecourt ruling that sex means biological sex WHAT ABOUT WOMEN? It has now been just over 100…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Ark Clampdown Improves Behaviour Re your article Academy Chain Shortlist, I would be interested to know what ‘experiences and concerns’ Helena Dollimore is so worried about in relation to…
Inseminating an Intelligent Artifice
ROBIN HOLTOM admits to some juvenile confusion concerning the facts of life I was living on a small dairy farm when I first heard the term AI. At the age…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Eighth Century Genocide Dear HIP Winston Churchill said that history is written by the victors. Although that is true, later historians are able to remove that bias and present…
The Way the Money Goes
As the Chancellor announces an extra £29 billion a year for the NHS, KENT BARKER asks whether any of that money should be spent on hefty salary increases for heads…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Hastings Pier: When will it be finished? Dear HIP I moved to Hastings from Cromer in 2016; I liked the Old Town; fishing boats and it had a pier.…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Homes and Green Spaces Dear HIP, We need nature and development to be in harmony for the benefit of both. Our MP in Hastings and Rye, Helena Dollimore, is…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter CATASTROPHIC BENEFIT CUTS Dear HIP Well done for your front-page coverage in issue 274 of the government’s planned cuts to disability benefits and the likely impact of these on…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Community Hub at Ashdown House Dear HIP With reference to your report Developers Seek to Shed Community Centre in HIP 273, Chartway's claim that it cannot find anyone to…
Follow the Money
CHRISTOPHER DODWELL Over the past 50 years, changes in local government financing have significantly reduced the ability of local councils to make independent financial decisions reflecting the needs of their…
Academies Disaster
JOHN RANKIN Academy schools in Hastings have been a disaster since they were first introduced - an idea imported from the United States and used by New Labour to address…
WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter Ark – A Parent’s View Dear HIP I want to express my thanks to you for actually writing a truthful article on Ark Alexandra Academy (Why Won’t They Behave?…