Letter

Food Waste Rollout 

Dear HIP

I welcomed Hastings Borough Council’s food waste rollout with open arms and the earnest hope of a true eco-warrior. I was ready to save the planet, one potato peel at a time.

Unfortunately, local fauna didn’t get the memo. Boris the Badger, Freddy the Fox, and Gerald the Gull have formed an unholy coalition, treating our supposedly lockable caddies like a tactical puzzle box designed by MI6. When a collection round is mysteriously skipped, the council-supplied starter bags dissolve into a fragrant bio-hazard soup that looks and smells like a biochemistry experiment gone catastrophically wrong.

Hoping for a shred of practical advice, I wrote to Waste Services. What I received was not a conversation, but a masterclass in municipal déjà vu: a stiff lecture on the statutory nuances of the Environment Act 2021. When I replied and politely asked a basic, operational question about whether I could purchase a thicker, certified compostable liner to stop the leaks, the council sent me the exact same word-for-word boilerplate macro a second time. They literally double-tapped me with a copy-paste loop.

It is a magnificent irony. We are living in the age of advanced artificial intelligence, machine learning, and dynamic digital tools capable of parsing complex queries in milliseconds. Yet Hastings Borough Council’s waste department appears to be powered by a single, exhausted hamster trapped inside a photocopier, churning out legal disclaimers instead of thinking. Rather than engaging with human feedback, they cheerfully suggest that if a rotting mess coats your bin, you should simply “rinse out the container ready for its next use”—evidently imagining local residents joyfully pressure-washing 23-litre caddies over their morning cornflakes.

I genuinely want this municipal scheme to succeed. But if the council insists on treating resident feedback with robotic stonewalling while local wildlife hosts all-night tasting menus in our back alleys, my vegetable peelings will have no choice but to migrate back into the standard general refuse bin. Even badgers have standards, after all.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Julian Patrick Keogh

Letter

Whose Free Speech 

Dear HIP

Gabriel Carlyle has criticised our MP, Helena Dollimore, for “her” policy on Israel and Gaza (Whose Free Speech? in HIP 309). But an MP to observe party policy and the Labour manifesto, and to support the leader and Prime Minister, is not a matter of her individual position. I suggest it is a waste of energy and time to bombard Helena with criticism for “her” policy on whatever Mr Carlyle is campaigning on at the time. Save your breath and your energy for campaigning against government policy, by all means – I may well join you. Better still, campaign (with others) against the Israeli regime’s actions. One-man campaigns against another individual never look that convincing.

Bea Rogers

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Letter

Whose Free Speech?

Dear HIP

Helena Dollimore MP and Grumpy Cook owner Barry Ashley are right to criticise the Reform-run East Sussex County Council (ESCC) for ending holiday meal vouchers for some of the poorest families in East Sussex (Reform in Reverse, HIP 308).

Moreover, ESCC’s leader, Andy Woolley, has made himself a laughing stock by threatening to report them both to the police for this criticism.

However, Ms Dollimore’s attempt to chide Reform for its hypocrisy on free speech (“I know that Reform UK includes ‘defence of free speech’ as amongst its policies”) is a case of the kettle calling the pot black.

After all, it was only last year that Ms Dollimore joined Nigel Farage and Andy Burnham to proscribe the nonviolent protest group Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act, thereby introducing severe restrictions on the free speech of everyone in the UK. For example, there is now only one legally permissible answer to the question “Do you support Palestine Action?”

As you yourselves report, two local pensioners are now facing a possible 14-year jail sentence for uttering an entirely innocuous 12-word sentence in public.

If Ms Dollimore has really had a Damascene conversion to the cause of free speech, then this should be welcomed. But if that’s the case, then her next step must be to publicly renounce her decision to ban Palestine Action and to call on Andy Burnham’s government to reverse this appalling decision.

Gabriel Carlyle

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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 Bayeux tapestry clearly shows the Norman sailors lowering the horses off the ship using the mast as a hoist to lower the horse over the side of the ship safely. One sailor is lowering the mast while one man is steading the boat with a pole secured in the beach. Another man is using the rope to lower the horse while another man is in the sea guiding the horse to the ground. The horses do not appear to be jumping off the boat! Mast of a Viking style ship had a pulley at the top used to hoist up the sail and the mast can be lowered when they are being rowed or moored. These kind of ships were well used by the Saxons and the Normans and can be seen in Viking ship museums in Oslo and Roskilde in Norway and Denmark. The nuns sewing the tapestry have not shown leather slings that would have been used to support the horse while they are being lowered. I am sure when Hastingers visit the British Museum to see the tapestry they can see it for themselves.

Regarding Roger’s invasion of Sicily, the chroniclers at the time mention a date of 1061 and not 1038!

Paul Reed

From our website

Syd’s Last Stand

Fun though Nick Tucker’s preview of ‘Syd’s Last Stand” (HIP 305) is, he’s arguably too much of a fan boy to be objective.

LSD, sometimes enjoyable, other times curdling your karma, does not automatically confer wisdom. Consequently, Syd’s solo albums were merely whimsical, fitfully entertaining and thankfully less pretentious and overlong than Pink Floyd’s later LPs.

Floorboards are not iconic; they simply stop you from falling through the ceiling. A more interesting question to ask when analysing the album cover might be why an unacknowledged woman is adopting such an uncomfortable pose in the background? I’m sure her nudity was essential to the artistic message, yet Syd, for some reason lost to rock history, retains his clothes… 

TK Bedford

From our website

Betty Important

I enjoyed the Betty Parsons exhibition last year. I agree the title was a misnomer, but as a researcher who’s written about a number of mid-twentieth century women artists, I found it very interesting to see the work from Betty Parsons, who supported women artists at a time when macho personalities dominated the world of abstract expressionism while ignoring the women. She was important.

Susan Gilbert

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 defence and just let any country that feels like it come and attack the UK? We’ll all be speaking Russian soon then.

So if we need defence, we need to buy things like F16s. Someone has to make them. General Dynamics employs a few hundred people in Hastings making parts – not whole systems, and not all for defence but some for luxury goods. So they’d rather they are unemployed instead?

It’s a very biased view. Where would you draw the line? We can probably link all industry to defence systems, so let’s shut down every employment opportunity in Hastings then? I can’t see why you choose to go with “mainly makes products related to war”, while saying nothing about defending our country.

General Dynamics is a global aerospace and defence corporation known primarily for manufacturing Gulfstream business jets, nuclear-powered submarines, main battle tanks, and advanced defence and avionic systems. So here’s hoping, for the jobs of the people, that the Green party have more sense than the journalist here.

Ian Summerfield

Letter

Contra Costa

Dear HIP

In the light of recent appearances in HIP, would you consider starting a conversation with your readership about what a community newspaper is, and what it is for?

I like having a community newspaper, and I appreciate the time and efforts of the volunteers that keep the paper going.  For myself, I don’t expect to agree with everything I see because, obviously, different parts of the community have different opinions. I like the way HIP is usually full of information about a range of local, independent and community-friendly projects and businesses.

Usually. But HIP issues 303 and 304 dedicated whole pages to an advert for a coffee-house chain owned by Coca-Cola. There are several reasons why this is, in my opinion, a terrible idea. I’ll stick to the main two.

Firstly, I would expect that as a community newspaper, HIP is against genocide. I wonder if your editors are aware that vast numbers of people, charities and community organisations around the world are taking part in a BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) campaign to try and stop companies from investing in Israel whilst its government maintains its murderous stranglehold on the Palestinian people? It’s much the same as the boycott campaign that people and organisations around the world successfully used to put an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Secondly, the full-page ad for a corporate outlet sits very oddly with your usual content about local businesses, projects, charities and politics – the kind of endeavours, in fact, which are often threatened by the expansion and promotion of big, corporate businesses.

Perhaps you don’t see it that way, or perhaps you weren’t aware that the establishment you are promoting is a Coca-Cola company, and therefore should not, in many people’s opinion, be assisted by community-friendly organisations?

I’d be interested to know your position on this.

Kay Green

Letter

Heritage Responses

In response to Hastings Heritage in Peril (HIP 304), Hastings Borough Council and its officers do need to protect our heritage (and any tourism benefit), but we should all care. The protection and restoration of buildings and monuments must be the norm – not the exception! With the dearth of industry in our area we rely heavily upon tourism to supplement the rates. Not caring about our heritage is to not care about our area’s future. We do need to move forward, but we need to work around our history.

Bryan Fisher

The “above-ground shelters” listed as “in danger” at Robertson Terrace are the outlets for the fans that ventilated the car park when it was originally built. The machinery was removed some time ago along with the ducting which provided ventilation in a time when most cars produced a lot of fumes when running.

Peter Roadman

From our website

Reform in Charge at County Hall

Not even pretending to be objective, are you (Tories Hand Council to Reform, HIP 303)? Minority administrations exist in many councils and do so with the support of smaller parties. If they could have made the numbers, doubtless Labour and the Lib Dems would have supported a Green minority council.

Likewise Reform councillors may not be very experienced, but neither would the Green councillors if they had formed a majority, and they are now running Hastings Borough Council.

Also, consistently demonising Reform as ‘Nigel Farage’s far right party’ is doing you no favours.

Stephen Butterton

I’m extremely concerned. Decent social care was already a major concern for all of us and our families, and so much else too. If East Sussex County Council Reform leadership echoes Kent County Council Reform, which it will, we are going to be in even more dire straits. The result shows the utter mess that Labour nationally has brought to bear at the local level.

While national and local government are not the same, the local political landscape has been influenced by national performance. Starmer has been such an out-of-touch nonentity, an a-political disaster with no political nous, charisma or knowledge, being led by the nose by his handlers at the national level. The Tories were unable to cut through after years of Johnson, Truss and Sunak because no one believes them any more. They cut local government budgets to the bone as it is.

It’s no surprise to many that politically inexperienced voters are fed up and desperate for something different, so have fallen for Farage’s racist-schtick and ‘nationalist’ messages of flag-waving hypocrisy that are meaningless. But just you wait, Reform voters – you will see he is nothing but a shape-shifter who only wishes to garner power and money for himself, like his friend across the water, Trump.

Rosie Brocklehurst

Letter

Cool School

Dear HIP

During this very hot week many schools have closed or curtailed their day length, and who can blame them? We would just like to give a shout out to Sandown Primary School’s response.

On Wednesday our grandchildren came out of school saying they had had “the best day ever”. The school had provided bowls of cold water for the children to put their feet in and wet cloths for their heads as well as other inventive methods of keeping them cool.

Today has defeated even this seemingly indefatigable team, but they deserve great credit for their actions.

Sheila and Charlie Hume

From our website

GP Changes for the Better

Yes, I remember the times when you had ‘your’ GP (‘Medical’ Malaise in HIP 304). Often working alone with no nurse or other specialist auxiliaries, and without the range of diagnostic tests which are now routine. And if ‘your’ GP was rude or just brushed you off (“you’re just a young girl, you’re not important to me”), that was it. Personally, I much prefer the present system with all its stresses and strains.

The government needs to turn its full attention to GP services and primary care generally. They should not be expected to run businesses alongside their medical practice, which means rethinking the contract with the NHS. They need the money to employ new doctors  – at the moment those can’t get GP jobs. And I suggest that we should all be prepared to accept appointments with a nurse, or a call from the pharmacist, if that answers our issue.

Bea Rogers

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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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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 under this Labour Government have done is an affront to humanity and to justice and sends a clear message to Palestinians that their lives are worthless and to Israel to carry on slaughtering. Shabana Mahmood and Yvette Cooper are authoritarian, and I despise them. I will never vote Labour because of them and Starmer, and a lot of people I know feel the same way. I have written a letter of condemnation to Jo Shiner the Chief Constable of Sussex about the decision to allow heavy handed policing in Hastings and the decision by the local force to arrest here, whereas in Truro where there was a similar peaceful protest, no such arrests were made for exactly the same type of protest. Disgraceful. This is the same Hastings force who tasered and pepper sprayed a very elderly man in a home who had dementia and couldn’t walk. He was confused and bewildered and waved a butter knife. He died three weeks later in hospital. Do you trust a Police force capable of doing that and getting off lightly? Lots of people in this town were outraged by that and will be by this.

Rosie Brocklehurst Franczak

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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 local stores now at an all time high. If and when caught, little or zero done about it, and police apparently not bothered unless more than £200 involved. What a great deterrent THAT is.

We have just received our Council Tax bill for 2026/27. It states that Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner funding is £281.91. Not having seen a police officer for around five months and just a small amount of police vehicles in the last year, and seemingly crime rising, we do wonder what exactly we are paying for.

Rother District Council and Bexhill-on-Sea Town Council receive a total of £308.70. Still the local roads are a total disaster and have been for more than five years, and that is without the Road Tax we pay. Sadly we are informed that little of our total Road Tax fund actually goes on the roads, we can certainly believe THAT!

Keep up the good work of informing the local public of the failings we experience in our areas.

Derek Stocker
Bexhill-on-Sea

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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 a few weeks/months the rain will get back in and the potholes will reappear. Instead, central government needs to fund preventative treatments that seal the roads and prevent water getting in in the first place. Continually focusing on filling in potholes is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money. 

Rowena Rowling

Letter

FIXING A HOLE

Further to your article of 30th January, where Council figures implied that more potholes were being filled than in the past. Figures may appear to show that an attempt is being made although I am sceptical of the statistics. But, clearly, if the number of badly repaired and NEW potholes exceeds those being properly dealt with, the number will continue to increase anyway. This is indeed the case. The basic infrastructure of the local roads is now so poor that the general perception of local road users is that the situation is getting worse – not improving. One could cite so many examples, but just a few that come to mind as worryingly dangerous would be: Gillsmans Hill is bad throughout but at the left hand junction from Hollington Park Road the defects are so bad that cars have to slow below 10mph to avoid serious tyre or wheel damage; The Green; Maze Hill; North Road is appalling; in fact any number of the busy roads that cannot be avoided in St. Leonards. Don’t even start on the state of the pavements!

Richard Glaisher

Letter

CYCLISTS IN FEAR

I was pleased initially to hear that a lot of money was set aside for road repairing of potholes, etc. I was also pleased to see some potholes being repaired, big sigh of relief. However, after an initial burst of repairs it all seemed to dry up. 

I am a cyclist and feel in fear when avoiding some of the deeper potholes, as I have to swerve around them or pull hard on my brakes to slow down. It’s okay after many repeat journeys as I largely know where they are and how to avoid them. The worst I have seen collectively is in Collier Road, by the West Hill: there are several deep ones and stones all around them that I presume have come out of those potholes. The situation is also very bad on the Ridge and some of the country lanes in surrounding areas.  The state of our roads gives me the impression of an uncared-for society left to ruin: a third world country. The longer they are left like this the harder and more costly it will be to repair them, causing major traffic disruption.

Don’t make promises to invest money to tackle this problem, or start fixing the problem areas just to abandon soon after.

Peter Bond

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HIP does not endorse the views on the Letters page. They are solely those of the writer.Please be aware we may need to edit letters for reasons of space and we will only withhold names if this is necessary for the protection of the writer

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, Bexhill College, the local community and the Council. (Landslides Action Plan 19 December 2015).

It marks a significant advance by the Council. It follows the community led approach of the present administration and hopefully its lessons can be learned by all the political parties.

In particular it shows the need to work across the divides of political parties: it is noteworthy that if the Labour and Green Parties had joined forces in the Ashdown and Conquest Council by-election they would have won.

Yours sincerely

William Ackroyd

Letter

The Science of Muddling Through

Anyone involved with management and/or town planning will surely be aware of the article ‘The Science of Muddling Through’ which broadly makes the point that bureaucracies only ever make change incrementally and that, of course, means slowly and in small step adjustments to the status quo. And, of course, that position has been qualified in some later articles by stating that publicly funded bodies have a duty to protect public funds and that large or rapid changes are unlikely to be well received by the general public. 

So, it is understandable why the housing strategy is so lacking in innovation and creativity. But in an age when global warming threatens in all manner of ways and in a town with such poor housing and yet full of creative people, is such a protectionist status quo position still viable? Should not our political representatives be more radical?

Of course, this is only a strategy and not an action plan, but for me at least, it misses the opportunity to be bold, to be ambitious, and mostly to show how it will be possible to work across the usual local authority management silos. There is mention of working with housing associations (HAs) who have considerable land assets for additional housing provision, there is mention of working with the planners to identify more housing opportunities, but the consultative group being referenced by the Council was never able to develop the sort of collaborative working with those other bodies that will be so vital in providing more sustainable communities. The strategy process could have been used to build bridges across some of the people that are vital to creating more high quality housing in the town.

Much of the housing association estate in Hastings was built when land was cheap and that also applies to employment areas which are also built as quite low density and, indeed, are now quite often shops rather than factories, offices, or workshops. Some increase in density designed well and sustainably could provide more housing and more communal facilities without taking up more countryside and, at the same time moving out of areas subject to long term flooding or land slippage. 

We need Housing Association management that looks beyond such immediate solutions as large scale demolition and that could be achieved by very specific planning policy and guidance. We need clear and locally distinctive planning policies/guidance such as for small infill sites (including in conservation areas), tall buildings, mixed use and housing co-ops. 

Above all else, we need locally to learn from each other and from across the world if needed. We need to be visionary, we need to be confident, and we need to embrace the creativity that already drives much of Hastings.

Ken Davis

Letter

There is no bread. We are dying.

Dear HIP

I read with interest your article “An Evening of Sadness and Hope” (05/12/25) commemorating the 1932/33 famine in Ukraine that has in recent years become known as the Holodomor. Whilst it is right and proper that all those who died in the famine should be honoured and remembered it should also be remembered that, though the Ukrainian experience was particularly horrific, not all the victims were Ukrainians. Millions of Russians, Kazakhs and other Soviet peasants also perished in what was a catastrophe afflicting the peasantry all across the USSR. As part of Ukraine’s nation-building project there has been a growing temptation to blame Russia for the famine and indeed to portray it as an act of genocide against Ukrainians, a narrative that has also recently taken hold in the West as a result of Russia’s invasion. Accepting such a picture without question is no doubt tempting at a time of war but doing so should be resisted by those who put the importance of history above that of politics. Despite it being a main plank of Ukraine’s ‘memory policy’ in recent years most objective historians reject the genocide thesis and recoil at the idea that it was an ethnically-targeted attack by Russia. It wasn’t. The perpetrators were the multi-national Bolshevik party, led by the Georgian, Joseph Stalin, and the famine killed on the basis of class, not ethnicity. The causes were many and complex but chief among them was the ruthless, ham-fisted way in which collectivisation was implemented and the fanatical way grain was requisitioned to fund industrialization. For that it “was not so much the Soviet Government as the world crisis which is to blame”. So wrote my great uncle Gareth Jones, someone who, credited as the first journalist to expose the famine, did so with the words, “Everywhere was the cry, ‘There is no bread.  We are dying. This cry came from every part of Russia, from the Volga, Siberia, White Russia, the North Caucasus, Central Asia.” The famine was an historical tragedy for all its undivided victims. The Holodomor is a way of looking at that tragedy that, by claiming exclusivity in victimhood, itself has problematic aspects.

Yours faithfully,

Philip Colley,

the Gareth Jones Society

Letter

Violence and Administrative Coercion.

The Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain responded to Mr Colley’s letter:

The Hastings & Rother Branch is grateful for the opportunity to respond to the letter submitted in response to the article “An Evening of Sorrow and Hope.” We fully agree that the famine of 1932–1933 was a profound human tragedy that affected people of different nationalities throughout the Soviet Union, and that all victims deserve to be remembered and respected.

At the same time, it is important to recognise that Ukraine suffered the most devastating and disproportionate losses. In the case of Ukraine, the famine unfolded alongside an active process of state-building and widespread resistance to Soviet policies. A significant body of historical research demonstrates that food requisitioning, punitive measures, and repression were deliberately used as tools to suppress resistance and to dismantle Ukrainian rural society.

Modern recognition of the Holodomor does not view it as an act of “Russia,” which in its current form did not exist at the time, but rather as a crime of the totalitarian Soviet regime. This distinction is crucial. The famine was not caused by a lack of food; it was the result of the systematic confiscation of grain, foodstuffs, livestock, and other property from those deemed disloyal, carried out through violence and administrative coercion.

Policies were applied in Ukraine that were not implemented elsewhere, including internal blockades of villages, strict bans on travel from famine-stricken areas, and the deliberate obstruction of international aid. By contrast, such measures were not applied in the same way in other regions, where mortality rates were significantly lower.

According to widely cited historical studies, millions of people died during the Holodomor, with estimates commonly ranging from 3.5 to 6 million victims in Ukraine alone. These findings are documented by authoritative institutions, including the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kyiv, as well as in academic research and archival sources.

In recent years, these findings have been reflected not only in public discourse but also in formal, documented recognition. The United Kingdom officially recognised the Holodomor as a genocide in 2023, following similar resolutions adopted by other national parliaments. These decisions were based on historical evidence and scholarly analysis, not political speculation.

The event, organised by the Ukrainian community, was an act of remembrance. Its focus on Ukrainian history reflects both the purpose of the event and the community’s responsibility to speak about its own past, drawing on documented facts, survivor testimonies, and internationally recognised historical research. This does not prevent others from sharing their histories; rather, it affirms the right of each community to do so honestly and with evidence.

Commemorating the Holodomor is not about exclusivity in suffering, but about recognising the specific historical mechanisms through which it occurred. Honest remembrance, grounded in facts, strengthens rather than weakens our shared understanding of history.

The Committee of AUGB – Hastings & Rother Branch

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 the words ”I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”.

The decision to proscribe Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act not only banned a nonviolent protest group on bogus grounds, but also introduced severe restrictions on the free speech of everyone in the UK. For example, there is now only one legally-permissible answer to the question “Do you support Palestine Action?”.

This has already led to 2,700 arrests of entirely peaceful protestors, including ourselves, and in Amnesty International launching its first ever urgent action regarding the right to protest in the UK.

Moreover, eight Palestine Action-linked prisoners are now on hunger strike – and two have been hospitalised – as a direct result of this absurd and deeply authoritarian law.

Our MP, Helena Dollimore, voted for this legislation and now looks set to vote in favour of still further restrictions on the right to protest.

We therefore challenge her to meet with us and defend her actions on film – including her refusal to acknowledge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and her continued support for UK arms sales to Israel.

Yours sincerely,

Fernando Bauza, Gabriel Carlyle, Jane Carey, Sarah Evans, Nina Heaton, Simon Hester, Marnie Johnson, David Polden, Emily Price, Ian Stewart, Jenny Sutton, Carl Turner, Lorna Vahey.

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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. You’re claiming it’s a neck-and-neck race between Labour and Reform, and the graph is enforcing this.

But the data is not intended for local elections, and the potential prediction (based on national polling) is of how the ward would contribute to a General Election vote. Your buried caveat that actually this data may be widely inaccurate will have been lost on most readers. 

It’s especially important considering that in recent by-elections across the UK the race has often been between Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats. It may be worth spending time polling or speaking to people in the area next time.

 David Angell

Letter

MP’s Vote on Ban

Dear HIP

In regard to your report on local campaigner Gabriel Carlyle pleading not guilty to a charge under the Terrorism Act stemming from a protest in support of Palestine Action (Gaza Campaigner Pleads Not Guilty in HIP 288), it should be noted that the disastrous and authoritarian vote to ban the nonviolent protest group Palestine Action received overwhelming support from MPs, including Hastings MP Helena Dollimore and self-styled free speech warrior Nigel Farage.

In August, this decision, and the mass arrests stemming from it, led Amnesty International to launch its first ever urgent action regarding the right to protest in the UK.

Ms Dollimore should now disavow her vote to ban Palestine Action, acknowledge the findings of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others that Israeli actions in Gaza clearly fit the legal definition of genocide, and join other Labour MPs in signing Early Day Motion 1310 calling for the immediate suspension of all UK arms sales to Israel.

Andrea Needham

From our website

Pier Business

A major issue facing any group wanting to take over the pier is how to create enough income to run it. On top of management, insurance and security overheads, the structure requires constant maintenance and repair. At its restoration, the only proposed sources of income were a cafe amd outdoor events – both, considering our climate and seasonal trade, very unreliable.

Unfortunately, it seems no one looked at how the Victorians/Edwardians built and ran successful piers. It might have won an architectural prize, but didn’t deserve prizes for business sense.

Whoever is allowed to take over this precious public asset must provide a plan of how they expect to make it financially viable, long term. Or else we continue the cycle of collecting money from the well-meaning public in the form of private donations and public grants, and then sinking into administration and disillusion.

Patrick Burton

From our website

Sisterly Respect

With reference to Joanna Lumley’s reminiscence in HIP 288 – Promises Should Not be Broken – Sister Phyllis Ella was headmistress of the Junior School, providing guidance for us in our early years. Other nuns I fondly recall were dear old Sister Jessie, who went barefoot with sandals throughout the year, and dear Sister Jean; then there was Sister Barbara, who petrified most and ruled the senior school for the majority of my time there.

It beggars belief that these ladies’ remains have been treated so callously, particularly by the St Agnes Trust, who should have shown more respect to these nuns who devoted their lives to the church and educating generations of girls.

Rosemary Dunsford

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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 ground! It seems so wrong. The Marina Pavilion, sadly idle, could be used as a place of shelter and warmth for these poor souls. Hastings Borough Council should be sorting this out.

Pre-Thatcher people who could not look after themselves were looked after by the State and rightly so. Care in the community is a big joke.

Verna Lodder
Chain of Thanks

Letter

Dear HIP,

My partner and I live in a flat in St Leonards-on-Sea. I am autistic and have ADHD. These conditions make it extremely difficult for me to cope with constant noise, stress, and disruption. Despite disclosing my disabilities to Orbit Housing, I have been left to live in conditions that have made me ill — and neither Orbit nor Hastings Council have taken effective action to help us.

We have been subjected to relentless noise and disturbance from the flat above. The tenant regularly vacuums late at night, crashes about, drops heavy objects, drags furniture across the floor, and argues and shouts with her partner into the early hours. The noise is unbearable, has destroyed our ability to sleep and has resulted in skyrocketing anxiety, and a sharp decline in our mental health.

All the disturbances have been reported to Hastings Council who served the tenant with a Statutory Nuisance Notice but then withdrew it. The flat above has no floor coverings, which amplifies every sound, but Orbit Housing has refused to help by installing any. I have also been physically assaulted, verbally abused, and threatened by others in the area. Worse still, I have been patronised and ignored by the authorities.

All my partner and I want is peace — to live in a home where we can sleep, feel safe, and not be bombarded by constant noise. That is a basic human right, and right now, it is being denied to us.

Nikki Elliott

Letter

Community Energy

The signatories to this letter call on the government to urgently increase the Community Energy Fund so that it can make good on its vision for 8GW of local and community-owned renewable power – and thousands of new jobs – by 2030.

The Fund is a government programme for feasibility and development work for community energy projects including small-scale wind farms and rooftop solar partnerships, as well as battery storage, rural heat networks, electric vehicle charging points, and fuel poverty alleviation schemes – all proposed, designed and owned by local people.

In East Sussex alone it has helped to develop projects in Bexhill, Crowhurst, Forest Row, Lewes, Ovingdean and Peacehaven.

However, according to Community Energy England (which represents over 320 community energy and associated organisations), the funding allocated for this financial year (£5m) is “‘so inadequate that it almost guarantees that [it] will run out of money again before the end of the year … caus[ing] a catastrophic slump in confidence and activity in the sector”’. They say that this figure must urgently be increased to at least £30m.

The government recognises the opportunities and benefits offered by community energy. It must now provide adequate funding to enable the sector to grow.

Kate Meakin,
Energise Sussex Coast,
Sian Berry MP, Julia Hilton and Ian Hollidge, ESCC
and 10 others

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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 it was a chance encounter on the street. James and his parents live two doors up from me, I see James all the time. On this occasion I was walking home after grocery shopping. Laden with bags on a bike, I had no idea the brief exchange would form the basis of a printed article, and to be honest, I’m rather surprised as I thought a ‘journalist’ had to ask for consent, or at least tell the person their comments were on record?

Aside from contextualising, let’s do a bit of factchecking. I have indeed been working as a campaign organiser for the Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn MP since November last year; but I haven’t particularly bragged about it. I haven’t posted on social media, written any articles, updated my Wikipedia or even put it on my LinkedIn. Though I really should as I’m working for a living legend, probably the most important and influential left wing political figure of my lifetime. 

Like me, local ‘analyst’ James Prentice loves statistics and opinion polls, therefore it must pain him that literally every poll shows Labour, after only a year, are sinking like a lead balloon.

Starmer is the second most unpopular leader in the world [net approval rating – 44 points, More in Common Poll 8 Sept 2025]. If there were a general election tomorrow, Labour would be wiped out by Reform UK, who now stand to win 35% of the vote, 400 seats in parliament [BMG Poll 1 Sept 2025]. Half of Britons say that Keir Starmer has changed Britain for the worse [IPSOS Poll 23 July 2025]. More people think Corbyn is a better leader than Starmer [YouGov Poll 11 Sept 2025].

I could go on and on, and on. I’m actually tempted to buy a lettuce and call it Keir.

So yes James, I’m stoked that I’m working for my hero, and it’s unbelievably exciting, albeit fraught, setting up a new left-wing party. During our brief street exchange, you accused me of “splitting the vote and letting Reform in”, but that old argument no longer stands, as Labour were already in steep decline even before Your Party launched. Indeed, Your Party has got off to a bumpy start, but the 750,000 supporters who have signed up shows there’s a massive need and excitement for a new left wing party who are doing democracy differently.

Maya Evans

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 not know the kind of organisation that they have been promoting.” 

Activists break the law sometimes to make a point. There is a law of criminal damage which deals with such action. A very small number of Palestine Actions protests have been criminal, and there are adequate laws to deal with them.

But why has this criminal damage been exaggerated to qualify as ‘terrorism’? Could it have anything to do with the fact that when Palestine Action paint-sprayed Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf course in March, the President was pissed off and announced that they were terrorists. Lo and behold! A few weeks later, our Home Secretary felt obliged to parrot this exaggeration.

On this basis the activists who recently spray-painted pedestrian crossings in Hastings must also qualify as terrorists, as it could be argued that they not only do criminal damage but, by obscuring road markings, they endanger life.

I doubt if Helena or any thoughtful person would want to polarise opinion further by claiming this is anything more than criminal damage. Exaggerating is foreign to the English or British character and the way we solve our problems.  We don’t need to start exaggerating just because it is a life-long–and very toxic–hobby of the President of the USA. 

Robin Holtom

Letter

Don’t Blame The Badgers

Dear HIP

I was horrified to read the article in HIP 284 Badgers Blamed
for Nuns Exhumation. I am an ‘old girl’ of the school and a relative of the headmistress, Sister Barbara, who was one of the nuns buried in the graveyard.

I see that you have been doing your best to get more information regarding this appalling situation. I am writing to our MP and have written to Julia Hilton of the Green Party. I and other ‘old girls’ are asking for more information and a better understanding of why this had to happen, and what is now being done to help lay the nuns to rest again. We will not accept the excuse that it was the fault of the badgers!

Sally Cole

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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 minor edits purely for space. For the same reason we have been unable to publish other letters on the subject. There are also more than 60 comments on our website, and dozens more on other social media sites.

HIP is a co-operative with no overall editor or editorial line. Ultimately decisions on what to publish are made by a committee based on a set of principles. First, the newspaper recognises that there will be a wide range of views within the community, and it seeks to cover a broad spectrum of those views. Second, that we are a community newspaper and aim to give a voice to the community.

For avoidance of doubt, HIP does not endorse views on either the Opinion page nor the Letters page – they are solely those of the writer, not of the publication.

……………….

Dear Hastings Independent,

I was appalled to read the recent piece on the ‘Women’s Rights’ Network. This is a damming and dangerous article to be given space in a newspaper that usually gives a voice to unheard or misrepresented news stories – all I seemed to read in this piece is echoes of everything already said by mainstream tabloid press, and worse. 

East Sussex is broadly inhabited by wonderful, inclusive and kind humans with a range of gender identities and sexualities – particularly noticeable in Hastings and St Leonard’s, demonstrated recently by the rise of popularity in Hastings LGBTQIA+ Pride and Trans Pride events. 

I ask your editors and contributors if they are happy to exploit existing social divisions and inequities by further exacerbating the current situation? Is the purpose of this op ed to cause harm? 

Do better, or risk being part of the problem – this is not what independent journalism should look like in Hastings (or anywhere).

India Harvey

……………….

Dear HIP

With regard to “All About Eve” one sentence in particular jumped out at me.  “For years, women defending single sex spaces and services have faced job losses, abuse and censorship”.  This has a particular resonance for me, and I think it is worth reiterating the personal cost to so many women who had the courage to refuse to join the trans cult, indeed the wonderful Milli Hill (author of Ultra Processed Women) recently likened the long-term effect of being subjected to such treatment as PTSD

Until recently, I too thought I had “moved on” but I am now coming to realise just how much I and other women like me have really lost.

I didn’t have a lucrative high-profile career; I was just local councillor who liked helping people but who had the misfortune to believe that telling the truth was more important than saving her own skin.

As a councillor, I refused to parrot the phrase “trans men are men, trans women are women”.  Instead, I said that there were issues around women’s sex based rights to single sex spaces that merited further discussion, discussion that I was perfectly happy to take part in.  That was it, the sum total of my crime, but it was enough to get me labelled “transphobic” and to start an online hate campaign that culminated in one Labour councillor calling for my resignation on stage at the Pride festival whilst all the others looked the other way and pretended they didn’t know me. 

Since the witch hunt, my coping mechanism has been to continue to put one foot in front of the other, trying not to dwell to much on what I have lost, but today it all came back to me.  I remembered how much I used to enjoy being involved in local politics, standing up for people and trying to make life easier for the most disadvantaged in Hastings.  I still miss it, just as I miss friends who turned their backs on me, just as I miss the conviction that I was part of a group who knew the meaning of solidarity.

And the worst thing of all?  This whole episode has brought into relief the attitude in politics in general towards women and women’s rights.  The sad fact is that women have never been seen as equals and their sex-based rights are seen as an “add on” which can be taken away at will by the ones in charge (men) in order to accommodate other men who now wish to be viewed as women.  “Trans rights” is now the “sexy” issue (I do not use that word accidentally) and “women’s rights” is now seen as the province of dried-up old harridans so eloquently described in Victoria Smith’s book “Hags – the demonisation of middle-aged women”.  No fun to be had there!  Misogyny, it would seem, is like the Hydra, cut off one head and two more appear in its place.  

Ruby Cox

……………….

Dear HIP

I am genuinely disgusted and disappointed you would publish transphobic articles in your publication especially when trans people are being demonised throughout the country and the world. 

It’s hateful and just a nasty opinion, you wouldn’t publish a homophobic or racist article, so I don’t get why you’d publish this. 

Krissie, a local non-binary person who will no longer support you 

……………….

Dear HIP

Thank you for publishing the Women’s Rights Network article about the recent judicial review on sex-based law. It’s hard on trans people and everyone else that the world has been persuaded trans human rights have been revoked. They have not. The UK has Equality law in place that protects everyone and has sections in place that protect sex-based groups (women and men) and trans groups, so that all can organise and speak up on their own issues.

Unfortunately, there is a trans lobby that has no reason behind its demands, and so rules by bullying and silencing. Their main demand makes a nonsense of sex-based law, as it insists that any male who says he’s a woman can crash into women’s groups regardless of who he is and what he wants from women. This creates anger, fear and division everywhere and should be resisted. That’s why the judicial review was necessary.

Like most women, I defend the right of trans people to a decent life and to the care they need but, unlike most people, I won’t sit quiet and let a bully win when it comes to defending women and girls, nor will I be scared off by emotional blackmail.

This battle has been particularly hard on socialist women because, although women who speak up for women’s rights come from all areas of politics and society, our enemies choose to brand us all as right-wing, thus creating another lie, that ‘the left’ does not care about women.

Kay Green

……………….

Dear HIP

I just want to say how refreshing it is to see the article by WRN in Opinion.  It’s sad that I think the paper is brave for printing it, but there we are. Readers deserve balanced coverage of a subject–your paper is an example of professionalism that seems to missing in news coverage nowadays. So thank you. 

Marian Cronin

……………….

Dear HIP

I don’t live in Sussex but have read the article you published from the women’s rights network. I just wanted to say a massive Thank You!! It was a calm fact-based article that will be very much appreciated by many women. 

Rosie MacKinnon 

……………….

Dear HIP

I was shocked to see you published the article “All about Eve” as an opinion piece. The “facts” that article comes up with fall way behind today’s biological and social knowledge about sex and gender. It is a collection of outdated beliefs that exclude, oust and damage members of the local community and beyond.

It is unfathomable to me how it was possible for you to agree to publish this. It is not a matter of opinion. I urge you to publish content with care for the community and the FACTS that are useful for people to know and understand.

Regina Volkmer

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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 people. 

On 7 August far right groups threatened hotels, mosques and immigration lawyers’ offices – including in Hastings. 

Hastings stand Up Racism called counter protests. 700 of us gathered at Cambridge Gardens to stop the threat. We swamped the threat with antiracist unity and turned the tide – at least temporarily. 

This weekend refugee hotels are again under attack. This time Reform UK and Tory politicians are openly encouraging anti refugee protests. The government is emphasising how “tough” they are on refugees, reinforcing the racist lies. 

We send solidarity to all anti racists who are mobilising to defend refugee hotels and to see off the far right. 

Now more than ever: Say it loud, Say it clear, Refugees are welcome here!

Simon Hester

Hastings stand Up Racism

Letter

Wreck Revisited

Dear HIP

I have read Peter Gray’s article Wreck of the Amsterdam (HIP 278) with great interest. His points are valid, particularly as he has experience of sailing, unlike myself – an archaeologist! From the historical point of view many of the facts are clear, which include that the ship was beached in a severe storm on 26 January 1749 after having lost her rudder. There is evidence that Captain Klump wanted to sail the ship on to Portsmouth, and reason to believe that off Bexhill, the crew had had enough – there was disease on board and many had died, and they mutinied and forced the ship ashore at Bulverhythe.

The reasons behind what happened and why the ship sailed as she did are not absolutely clear, but contemporary records do show that Klump was an experienced sailor in command of his ship, so we should respect what he did in the circumstances that faced him from the day she left the Netherlands to when she arrived at Bulverhythe. In fact, in a subsequent enquiry by the Company in the Netherlands, Klump was exonerated from blame in the loss of his ship and went on to command another vessel.

When a ship is lost, as also happened to the Mary Rose in 1545, a set of unforeseen circumstances will have occurred that took the ship out of the normal methods of control, so to some extent we can only guess what happened. Peter Gray’s experience as a sailor enables him to pass an informed judgment and to raise queries that are valid. But finding the answers is another thing, for we are somewhat constrained by what we know.

Much of what was found in the Amsterdam has been returned to the Netherlands, and some items are exhibited in the Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam, together with a full-sized floating reconstruction of the ship. However, some objects and the story of the ship are shown locally in the Shipwreck Museum in Hastings.

Peter Marsden

Author of Wreck of the Amsterdam first published 1974

Letter

Parkinson’s Local Hub

Dear HIP

In reply to the letter written by Mrs Diane Baker in HIP 282, concerning the proposed Parkinson’s Hub – thank you, Diane, for your encouraging words. Our working group has now expanded, and we are continuing our search for a venue. A recent meeting with MP Helena Dollimore was very encouraging,and after continuing discussions with many Parkinson’s patients and NHS professionals, we hope to make our idea of a local hub become a reality.

You commented that in my article I did not mention the support for people with Parkinson’s in the local area. I am aware of the groups you mention and either attend or support most of them with my husband. They are a hugely valuable resource, which we would hope to work alongside when a hub becomes available. Our idea of a local hub is that it would enhance and include all of the Parkinson’s resources in the community. Having worked as a volunteer myself, I am aware of the hard work that it entails to keep all of these resources going. I take my hat off to them.

I recently attended the Summer ParkinSongsters concert. It was a lovely occasion and an example of community resources at their very best.

Mary Upton

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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 the leadership of Ark Academy schools. Is it the policy of no make-up, fake eyelashes or heavy earrings? Maybe it’s the rule that students have to wear skirts that cannot be rolled up into very short skirts? Is it the zero-tolerance of failing to turn up with the necessary pens, pencils and ruler? Or perhaps it’s the policy of no mobile phones allowed to be brought to school? 

This latter rule certainly seems the most divisive (one parent even suggested that it should be referred to the European Court of Human Rights). As a parent, I can tell you that no mobiles at school is a pain. But not only can you learn to cope with it, in many ways it gives Ark pupils an independence and responsible attitude that is so missing these days. My daughter attends Ark Alexandra and her view is that since these ‘draconian rules’ have been applied, she has felt a massive improvement in behaviour, has seen less bullying and enjoyed far more pupil interaction.

Ark is in the early stages of encouraging a better attitude to learning, respect and kindness from students (and parents). It’s not perfect but the building blocks are there – they have a plan. A vision. Perhaps Helena Dollimore should focus on the local schools that seem to be totally lost and struggling to provide leadership and direction for our young students. Oh, and Helena, if you are reading this, perhaps you would have the decency to engage with my wife who has written to you three times to discuss the other side of your ‘experiences and concerns’ in relation to the Leadership of Ark schools.

Christian Clark

Letter

Youthful Gaza Fundraising

Hello, my name is Noah and I am 12yrs old. I am writing to you about a sponsored walk I did along the seafront in Hastings on the 7 April 2025 to raise money for families in Al Mawasi in Gaza. I walked 11 kilometres with my friends and raised £1,863.50. We are doing another sponsored walk on the 20th of July and we are hoping to get even more people involved this time. I am sharing our leaflet and would love it if you could let people know what we are doing so that we can help as many people as possible. I will also include a picture from our sponsored walk in April.

Thank you,

Noah Sims

Letter

Benefits or Weapons

Why has an article highlighting the increase in numbers of PIP claimants (PIP – Personal Independence Payment), been included in HIP, without any reference to the disgraceful cuts to essential disability benefits? As a disabled person, the only inference I can take from this article is that HIP is somehow agreeing with Starmer’s government that something needs to be done about the increase in the numbers of disabled people now eligible for PIP and that the only response is to drastically cut the numbers. This action will save the government money so they can then spend it on more weapons, but the reality is thousands of disabled people will be thrown out of work and into poverty. I have worked all of my life and PIP has been a crucial benefit that has enabled me to stay in work because it covers some of the additional costs related to disability.

It is a disgrace that a Labour government has chosen to target the disabled community by labelling us as workshy benefit scroungers – why isn’t HIP seeking to highlight this instead!

Tara Flood

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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 a more balanced and fairer history. Reading our local Bexhill and Hastings histories, I don’t think this has happened yet.

At some point before 771, the savage Hastings tribe retreated, or were pushed, to live on the Hastings peninsula, almost an island. They thought they would be safe living separately from the rest of the country. But in that year King Offa attacked them.

We know from the charter of 772 of a battle which took place at Cooden / Little Common on the east side of the huge Pevensey Bay of those days. The invaders moved across from Cooden as far as a windy hill, now Bexhill Old Town, and the charter of Bexhill 772 refers to building a Minster on this hill. The Hastings tribe had been pushed back to the Combe Haven estuary valley.

Over the following years the invaders began advancing around the Combe Haven valley, and experts say that they added to the original charter that they had been given that land, when they had not. The Hastings tribe is known to have made various stands–at Wilting Manor, at Bulverhythe where they enjoyed a few years, at White Rock and finally in the Bourne Valley.

It is not that our Bexhill and Hastings history is wrong, as far as it goes, rather it is incomplete. The Hastings tribe were defeated and had their land taken from Cooden all the way to the Bourne valley, being killed all the way. They had their backs to the Ridge and nowhere to go. In any other country or place this would be called ethnic cleansing to extinction, i.e. genocide. The invaders took the name Hastings in memory of the people they destroyed. It’s not a nice history, but it is a more balanced and less biased one. It shows respect to the ‘followers of Haest’, whom the people of Kent and Sussex didn’t want anything to do with.

Paul Minter

Letter

Housing Refugees in Hastings

Dear HIP

Upon reading your report False Claims Spark Outrage and Fear in HIP 279  I would like to comment, as an ex-private landlord.  In a bid to help the people of Hastings seeking homes, I applied to let my property via HBC’s LetStart scheme at a rent considerably below the current market value.  Following a visit from Hastings Borough Council (HBC), I was required to upgrade various things, which I did at considerable expense.  It was then suggested I contact a ‘refugee scheme’ who deal with HBC.

On meeting the people running this refugee scheme, I was astounded by the amount of money being offered to me to house the refugees; over and above any amount being offered by the LetStart scheme or, indeed, the open market.  It felt like bribery! I didn›t take up the offer. Please try to understand why people are so ‹outraged› and sensitive to any story/information regarding migrants.  We must remember the people arriving on ‘little boats’ are illegal immigrants.  Perhaps, if they had applied to live in the UK via the legal process, people would look upon them more favourably. 

I feel the difference between ‘refugees’ and illegal migrants is blurred and needs to be clarified.  Also, it would help if HBC were more transparent with their housing policies and processes: perhaps a public presentation would help assuage people’s fears and any misunderstandings they may have.  Also, Hastings had a housing crisis prior to the influx of migrants, and the extra pressure has meant that the indigenous population of the town are experiencing increased competition to be housed.  

L.F.O (full name provided)

Letter

Committee System

Dear HIP

I do not support the creation of a unitary East Sussex (the less said about the so-called Mayoral Combined Authority the better). It would not only mean the continuation of the ineffective Tory-led East Sussex County Council in all but name, but also deprive the residents of Hastings (where I live) and other boroughs/districts of their right to control how services are provided in their own areas, thus furthering the centralised neglect for which ESCC is known.

I would prefer to abolish the county level authority in its entirety and delegate its powers to the existing districts/boroughs. But given that this Government, like its predecessor, is wed to the notion that ‘bigger is better’, and will push through unitaries whether we like it or not, I would suggest modifying the existing committee system within the proposed council to create geographically-based committees matching the boundaries of the existing boroughs/districts. The overall budget could be divided out between them, effectively recreating those councils as nested bodies within the ostensible unitary.

Nicholas Davies

Letter

Mayor’s Tales

Dear HIP

My wife and I really did enjoy reading Bringing the Bling in HIP 279 by our current Mayor, Becca Horn. She succinctly gave a flavour of what is expected of our Mayor and our town’s representative during a Mayoral term of office.

Both my wife and I take a particular interest as we each served in this capacity, in 2000-1 and 1993-97 respectively. Hastings must do all it can to retain the right to have its own Borough Mayor, which it was first granted in 1558 by Elizabeth I.

We have one query about the Mayoral Chain or ‘Bling’ as Becca describes it, shown in the accompanying photo. This is different from the one both my wife and I wore. The chain in our time had two especially minted gold coins inserted within the chain’s links. These were to honour our Queen’s visit to Hastings in 1966 to mark 900 years since the Battle of Hastings. The Mayoral Chain is of great value, in more ways than one, so could Becca please clear up this mystery for us?

We also remember in the Mayor’s Parlour there were furniture and wine coolers that once belonged to JMW Turner, the renowned painter–but perhaps we digress.

Richard & Jackie Stevens

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. Cromer Pier has a café, restaurant, sheltered sitting area, a little theatre, lifeboat museum, and a lifeboat launching pad. Everybody visits Cromer Pier when in town; why wouldn’t they? 

 I didn’t pay much attention to what Hastings Pier offered before I got here; assuming it would be more of the same. I heard beforehand that it had won awards and that sounded great. When I first saw the pier, I genuinely thought it was just being rebuilt. But it wasn’t, that was it! 

So, what is it; apart from being a good advert for excellent decking, what does it offer? Are the local authorities stopping its development? If a visitor to Hastings passed by this pier, is there anything at all that would want them to park up and visit it? Thankfully, it doesn’t have any lights on at night, as other piers have, to attract attention to it, so it doesn’t light up an allusion of appeal; it’s just dead; reminded me of a prison. 

Hastings has improved a lot since I arrived in 2016, and with a better road from London it is likely to become a real alternative to those wishing to live in the south coast but without Brighton costs. Can I just plead with whoever it may concern; please finish the pier and when it is finished, put lights on it to let our visitors know that it is there and worth visiting.

Cliff H Colquhoun

Letter

New Houses at Sandrock Bends

Dear HIP

As a frequent visitor to St Helen’s Park and as someone who knows the surrounding area very well, given that my grandparents lived in this part of Hastings, I (like many) am against the proposal to construct a total of around 80 new houses at the site of Sandrock Bends. This particular zone is the ONLY wildlife corridor connecting the High Weald to St Helen’s Woods.

The Sussex countryside has been attacked time and time again by housing developers for decades now. Many times, I have stood upon hilltops and within the woods of St Helens imagining just how truly splendid this part of the coast must have been once upon a time, covered in glorious, wildlife-abundant, ancient British woodlands, which would have spread all across the rolling hills atop our dramatic cliffs – the mighty ocean out beyond. Creatures from seals to wild boar, peregrine falcons to cormorants, roaming freely, at the time of the Norman landing (for instance). I myself have seen a wealth of beautiful animals within the targeted area: red kites, buzzards, badgers, healthy-looking foxes and barn owls, to name a few. 

Must we really produce yet another load of monotonous, drab, soulless-looking houses which will end up with more cars on finance parked in front of them, and people sitting behind television screens inside? At this rate, the entire nation is going to become literally an endless housing project, with council estates, apartment blocks, care-homes, private residences, etc, standing on every square inch of English soil. (Edited)

Benjamin Charles Anson

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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 generally actively supportive in this matter. It is crucial that we address the local housing crisis whilst retaining our coastal and rural aspects for the wellbeing of all. Homes and green spaces are needed equally.

Penny Beale

Letter

Artistic Graffiti

Dear HIP

In Graffiti–Signs of Disengagement (HIP 275), Tony Collins compared graffiti to fly tipping and dog mess. It’s a false equivalence. Letting your dog shit all over Bottle Alley is not a legitimate form of self-expression. Graffiti can be.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Shepard Fairey and Banksy all started out as taggers. Humans have been scratching marks on walls for centuries, it’s just the context that has changed.

Bottle Alley doesn’t belong to Studio ZeroH and its supporters. As your Editor’s Note (also 275) states, it’s a communal space. And the graffiti in Bottle Alley isn’t simply mindless vandalism – it can be entertaining, surreal, witty and sometimes deeply moving. This poem was written on a column before the recent paint-job:

My Mum

Mum, do you love me yet?

Mum, can I be your little girl?

Mum, will you wash my back this once?

Mum, do you still want to hurt me?

Mum, will I ever forgive you for what you’ve done?

Mum, I can’t help but hate and miss you

Hardly the “talent-free scribbles” that Tony Collins describes. An “enthusiastic volunteer” painted over it–I wonder if they read it. Confusingly, an adjacent statement that reads “He Who Feeds You Controls You” is not only left untouched, but is respectfully painted around. Why? Because it’s art? Who decides? 

This isn’t an apology for vandalism, it’s a plea for tolerance and engagement.

And being precious about keeping Bottle Alley pristine betrays a disheartening lack of imagination. Graffiti can be big business. Pay a visit to Leake Street Tunnel in London, Digbeth in Birmingham, St Paul’s in Bristol–people flock there to see the very thing that Tony Collins and Roger Lewis (his letter–“Ignorant Destruction” in the same issue) want to paint over. Leake Street is a vibrant, exciting, global destination. It could be a model for Bottle Alley: a democratic, sanctioned place for expression for whoever wants to leave their mark there. Continually repainting over each other’s work will only increase disengagement. As one contributor succinctly put it–“Stop Painting Over Art With Your Art”.

Noel Farragher

Letter

Dear HIP

“The government’s planning and infrastructure bill is the worst assault on England’s ecosystems in living memory”. George Monbiot’s words in a recent article–but I echo them, as does anyone with concern for our already beleaguered wildlife.

The UK’s natural world is facing a significant crisis, with one in six species at risk of extinction, and many habitats in poor condition.

This bill, on the precipice of going through, will not save, it will destroy. It favours corporations and commerce over our greater assets of value, our shrinking ‘green and pleasant lands’.

The Wildlife Trust’s Natural Health Services Report lays out just some of the ways that our fragile heritage of nature helps us all. We cannot and must not let it slide into oblivion, and so must oppose this bill, at the very least in its current form.

Barnaby Green

Letter

Keep the Staircase

Dear HIP

I am writing in response to, and support of, Robin Holtom’s letter published in HIP 275, What Future for Azur?

I am in complete agreement with his description of the process of commissioning, design and then building of Azur, the end result of which is the deserted and defunct pile of builder’s rubble which continues to obscure the seaview from the Burton terrace opposite. 

There were so many things wrong about the process that it is difficult to point the blame, but it was wrong from the very inception. There was no need for anything like Azur in its current location, and the fact that it was built –  literally–on top of the Sidney Little function rooms was a clear and early sign of the waste and foolishness of it all.  Less money could have been better spent on adapting the attractive (if overly large) function room on the lower level to better purpose. 

As for the materials used in the build 20 years ago, Mr. Holtom remarks that they were ‘high quality’ materials, which they may have been, but without doubt they were the wrong materials, ill-suited to a position on a south-facing seafront with exposure to the relentless cycle of wind and rain and storm (and sunshine) we enjoy.  The exterior walls started failing within six months of the building’s opening, and such repairs as have been made over the years have done little to maintain the precarious state of the building.  It is now in a sorry state and only serves as a monument to the inept and wasteful teams of people who started the process, spent a great deal of public money, and left us with a useless pile of rubble. 

By all means let us have this eyesore removed and start a sensible reversion to the use of the function rooms beneath.  The staircase from the promenade is, indeed, still there, and would take the punters down to the beach, which may be where they want to go anyway. 

Gilbert O’Brien

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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 disabled people and their families in Hastings and beyond.

We’ve been horrified by these plans, which the Department for Work and Pensions’ own impact assessment predicts would drive 300,000 people into poverty, including 50,000 children.

As we know from our work, disability and fuel poverty are closely linked. Indeed, 72% of the thousands of people that Energise Sussex Coast helped through our free energy advice service last year had a disability or long-term health issue.

The government has implied that the impact of the cuts will be offset by £1 billion of employment support measures “to help disabled and long-term sick people back into work”.

However, it is also planning to have MPs vote on the cuts before the Office for Budget Responsibility has even had a chance to assess how effective – if at all – these measures are likely to be. (When the OBR assessed the previous government’s now-abandoned plans to restrict disability benefits, it concluded that only 3% of those affected would find paid work.)

In reality, as the disability charity Scope notes, these cuts would be “a catastrophe for disabled people’s living standards and independence”. We urge your readers to use writetothem.com to contact Hastings’ MP, Helena Dollimore, and urge her to change her mind and vote against them.

Gabriel Carlyle Energise Sussex Coast

From our website

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Christopher Dodwell’s article Follow the Money in HIP Issue 274 should be blown up to poster-size and plastered all over town.

If you look into the cumulative actions against local democracy by the last few governments, you can see the long road to the demise of community-oriented councils in favour of big-business developers. Once you see that, it finally becomes clear that the one and only reason we’re now being tipped headlong into a county unitary council with a far-off mayor in charge is that it’s the system best suited to ‘Special Economic Zones’ – that is, giant, corporate, business estates acting as tax havens for the wealthy.

The real blinder in all this is that the last few line-ups we’ve had at Hastings Borough Council have put their heads down and tried to run the council as though they still had funds and an ability to act, the main result of which was to persuade large swathes of the community that it is totally useless and might as well be scrapped.

It’s not too late to fight back. Fill in the consultation if you want to – might as well, as the current oh-so-biddable council leadership agreed to fund it. Say ‘no’ to the mayor, ‘no’ to putting everything at county level, and ‘yes’ to one of the ‘options’ with an element of local representation. The government won’t be bound by that consultation, though. It’s also necessary to explain the nature of the con any way we can, until everyone gets it.

Thank you, Christopher Dodwell for the best contribution yet to that effort, and thank you, HIP, for publishing it.

Kay Green

From our website

ALDERMEN ABOLISHED

A Lost Transport of Delight in HIP 274 was a fascinating article, I knew nothing about this! A couple of minor errors, though. Firstly, Hastings had (and still has) a mayor, not a lord mayor. And, secondly, councillors were not known as aldermen at that time. Councillors were elected in the same way they are now. Aldermen were appointed to the council by the elected councillors. Aldermen were abolished in the 60s, because the system was open to widespread abuse, with local businessmen bribing councillors to appoint them as aldermen. They had the same functions and responsibilities as councillors, but without the responsibilities to an electorate in a particular ward.

Peter Chowney

Letter

What future for Azur?

Dear HIP

Twenty years ago or so, large amounts of public money was spent on eye catching projects  such as the Sussex Exchange off Queensway, The Bridge in Ore and Azur in St Leonards. None of them  are flourishing as they were imagined to  – probably because the money was dropped from on high for capital spending without proper planning for revenue income. Azur is a particularly prominent example of how a project to create regeneration has turned within 20 years into degeneration and dereliction. It was built with expensive materials but it is also a high maintenance building.  The builders were obviously out of their depth since the funnel shaped skylights have been placed so that two funnels point in one direction while one points in another direction. The architect I understand has disowned it and it is not on his website. The vandalised wreckage of the building now serves no purpose apart from obscuring the magnificent listed colonnade of James Burton which has flourished for 200 years -never mind 20. Why not dismantle Azur and maintain the original Sidney Little Marina Pavilion on the ground floor which is eminently usable still. The expensive coloured glass used in Azur could be recycled to Bottle Alley and perhaps the staircase down from the promenade could be remodelled as a modern entrance with signage to draw customers. 

Robin Holtom

From our website

IGNORANT DESTRUCTION

On the front page of issue 274, you asked readers to share their views about graffiti.

I moved to Hastings seven years ago, and what breaks my heart and disgusts me on a regular basis is all the graffiti. No sooner is Bottle Alley repainted in the pastel shades the great architect Sidney Little wanted, than some little swine disfigures the walls and pillars with spray paint or black marker pens. The gracious shelters are also regularly vandalised. Graffiti is worse than anti-social, it is wilful and ignorant destruction.

Whilst we are on the subject of Sidney Little’s heritage, cannot the lido be reconstructed? Its demolition was a prime example of scandalous municipal vandalism. But that’s another topic again.

Roger Lewis

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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 run a community centre at the Ashdown House site seems a very lame excuse to us. Surely, once it is built, the residents of the Baldslow/Ashdown area can hold a public meeting and set up a committee to manage the building.

My parents moved to Harrow Lane in 1975 and the area still had a ‘village’ feel. Since then, more homes have been built and now there are more than 500 homes being built at the northern end of Harrow Lane. This means there will be thousands more people living here with no focal point for many of their activities.

We think the Baldslow Memorial Hall, at the northern end of Harrow Lane, while being very attractive, will be too small to cater for the needs of this growing community.

We urge local residents to contact their borough councillors and our local MP, Helena Dollimore, to ensure that this community centre plan is not dropped.  Baldslow and the surrounding area need a community hub.

Lynda and Colin Foy

Letter

Cancelled elections in East Sussex

Dear HIP

Of the eight county councillors representing wards in Hastings, only Phil Scott (Labour, Hollington & Wishing Tree) has been asked if he would be prepared to stand down and force a by-election. Although he voted against the decision to recommend cancellation of elections, he was not prepared to put his money where his mouth is, and will remain in place after his mandate expires on 1 May, citing the cost of the poll – which would have been incurred anyhow had the Government declined to accept East Sussex into its pilot scheme for devolution and local government reorganisation.

I would like to invite all residents of Hastings to write to their respective county councillor and demand that they stand down and force by-elections across our town. Regardless of political affiliation, they should stand up for the rights of the people who elected them in the first place to choose their representatives, however brief the municipal interregnum will be, for we will remember it when the time comes to elect the new unitary bodies.

Nicholas Davies

From our website

A Political Choice

It is very worrying to read our council leader say (in The Biggest Change in Local Government in Fifty Years, HIP 273) that “There is no additional government funding for this complex reorganisation, we have to self-fund, including if necessary, selling off assets.”

This reorganisation is a political choice by the national government, so it’s not ‘necessary’ in any real sense, is it? Why does the council not refuse to allocate a single hour of officer time to this without the additional funding to do so? Why would the council decide to sell off our public assets to pay for a scheme we don’t think is necessary? Why don’t the councillors try to use their elected positions to refuse, obstruct and denounce the government for putting them in this position rather than meekly going along with it?

The main reason I would like to see us keep our local council is so that we have elected politicians close to home who we can hold accountable for acting and speaking out on our behalf – not just acting like government functionaries. I can only imagine this technocratic approach to implementing top-down instructions from government will just get worse if our elected councils are even further removed from localities.

Politicians must remember they are not employees being line-managed by council officers – they are elected to represent and have a duty to act in what they think is the best interests of their constituents. Is it really in our best interests to sell our assets or spend a penny of public money on this sham process where the outcome seems predetermined?

If the government steps in and forces the changes through anyway, it would be no worse than what they are doing now (asking councillors to do their dirty work for them), but at least we would know which politicians would best fight for us when the elections for a new unitary council come around. Maybe a bit of resistance from a local council might even prompt some other district councils to take a stand too. And maybe we could even see a serious fight against the real government agenda behind unitarisation, which is just cost-cutting and creating even less democratic accountability over ever-reducing budgets for our local public services. I live in hope…

Grace Lally

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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? in HIP 270). I did notice the corrections in the following article, noting that the numbers were actually of those who have been deregistered by parents, not suspensions – which in my opinion is even more shocking.

I just wanted to point this out,as I am one of the parents that deregistered my son from school altogether after just two terms at this school in Year 7. I am upset, as now my 12-year-old is in between schools, and has been for a month. The transition from primary to secondary school at Ark Alexandra was outrageous, and I cannot believe they seem to be still getting away with this treatment of pupils and parents.

I’m glad to see an honest write-up about what is going on there, albeit only the tip of the iceberg!

Samantha Hippel

Letter

Water Compensation ‘Victory’? Don’t pop the champagne yet, Ms Dollimore

Dear HIP,

In your article Water Compensation Victory in HIP 270 you write regarding the ‘victory’ of our MP Helena Dollimore for securing £2.8million in compensation for the May 2024 water outage. There’s a lovely photo of her and supporters with a prop cheque on the seafront.

While this was being taken, a rather different conversation was happening with Southern Water at Hastings Borough Council. 

We’d won a commitment from CEO Lawrence Gosden back in November, at our second public meeting with SW, to reconsider paying this compensation. I reminded him just before Christmas and a meeting was set for January to discuss it. There, we were pleased to hear they would offer the full new GSS rate of compensation – £50 for every twelve full hours’ loss of supply. However, they stated the number of households impacted was 22,834. They agreed to check their figures and come back.

I calculated that if every household had been out for the full five days the compensation would be £11.4m. If just 10% were out fully, and the rest for one day, it would be £3.2m.

My response, therefore, when presented with their £2.8m sum that day, was somewhat less victorious. I made it clear I thought they’d miscalculated and insisted customers should have a means to query the amount. Now, SW admit they have seriously miscalculated – by millions.

Southern Water must get this right. We would all love to move on from the past four years of failings – but we’re not there yet. I am working with them to revisit cases of residents whose lives have been, frankly, ruined by flooding. This, and the enormous reputational and environmental damage that sewage pollution has done to our tourist town, must be repaired before popping the champagne. 

I’m saving my celebration for the day our water is brought back into public hands, where it belongs.

Cllr Becca Horn

Green Cllr for Castle Ward and Clean Water Action member

Letter

Ark – Let’s see the outcomes

The proof will be in the impact on school results. Big changes in outcomes require big changes in input. It’s  a brave person that solicits this level of ire from the public (and seemingly, local journalists) for the goal of better education for children.

Jack Adams

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Letter

In Defence of Gaza

Thank you for publishing Mr Bennett’s letter, In Defence of Israel (HIP 268) albeit with a disclaimer. If nothing else, it does present an opportunity to set the record straight.

The authoritative tone of the letter masks many falsehoods. He begins explaining that absence of ‘intent’ means no genocide is taking place. This ignores the fact that the presence of ‘intent’ has already been confirmed, not least by ‘Law for Palestine’ who have researched and documented over 500 pieces of evidence clearly showing ‘intent’. It is partly the presence of such clear ‘intent’ that has led to the ICJ’s ruling that it is “plausible” Israel has indeed committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention.

The arrest warrants to Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity by the ICC have not been issued without good reason. Mr Bennett tries to contrast all this with the outdated 37-year-old Hamas Covenant; he ignores the fact that in 2017 Hamas revised its policies and now accepts a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. In contrast, Israel wants all of Palestine for itself, hence the root cause of the conflict.

Another falsehood is the unevidenced claim of “not a single march, protest or letter to an MP” against the “genocide in Sudan/Darfur” or “jihadist terrorist” killing in Nigeria. The important difference is that the UK is not directly complicit in those genocides. In this one, we clearly are. Not least because of the Balfour Declaration, which is why British people have such a historic duty to speak out on this issue.

On Israel’s ethnic cleansing, despite it being well-documented over decades and the many loud and current calls to accelerate the crime from Israeli politicians and extremist groups, Mr Bennett, says all this is “simply untrue”. He claims inhabitants in Northern Gaza were just “asked to move”, itself a war crime, so the IDF could “eliminate Hamas”. He doubles down by saying that “since then, many have returned to the area without hindrance from the IDF”. This ignores the extreme difficulties placed on returnees, despite the ceasefire, and that most of them now have very little in the way of homes to return to anyway. Much of Gaza has deliberately been made uninhabitable by Israel in an act of inhumane and unbelievable cruelty.

Perhaps the most insidious part of the letter was this “The real genocide was made by Hamas on 7 October, storming into a kibbutz, murdering, raping and burning 1200”. Many deaths undoubtedly did occur that day, including an unknown number inflicted on its own people by the IDF as part of their ‘Hannibal Directive’. But much of what was said to have happened has now been thoroughly debunked as ‘atrocity propaganda’.

False accusations of mass rape and beheaded babies were used at the beginning of the conflict to try and portray Palestinians as subhuman in order justify the genocide that Israel was intent on committing. Shamefully, this happened with the collusion of our mainstream media and politicians. Whatever happened on October 7 it was far less brutal than what Israel has subsequently carried out in Gaza. And it cannot be seen, or understood, in isolation from the preceding decades of land theft, racism, injustice and apartheid that have been visited on a beleaguered Palestinian people held captive in their own ancestral land by European settlers ever since 1948. Some things are indefensible, and unforgivable. Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinians is one of them.

Yours faithfully,

Philip Colley

Letter

UNRELIABLE EVIDENCE

Dear HIP,

I had to comment on your editorial remark about the In Defence of Israel letter: ‘editorially we do not accept its contentions and believe many are unsupported by facts. In particular the Israeli Prosecutor’s Office have admitted that no allegations of rape or sexual assault have been filed from the 7 October cross-border attack.’ You could not have chosen a less reliable form of evidence.

The TV news film of the post-attack landscape, with bodies strewn about, clearly shows women who had been violently sexually assaulted–in a state of undress, with blood in the relevant area, and with a bullet hole to the forehead–which might just account for them not having made an allegation to the Prosecutor’s Office. 

I’m not sure if post-mortems were carried out on these victims of gang rape and execution facing their masked killer, but if there were, these will be another source of highly reliable evidence.

A number of the hostages who have been returned to their families have confided in people they trust, that they have been mistreated in various ways, including sexually. There may well be medical reports on these people, which you could have investigated. 

I would guess these victims saw no point in retelling (and reliving) their experiences to the Prosecutor when they saw little hope of any of the perpetrators being prosecuted for their criminal actions. The UK annual British Crime Survey asks a proper sample of the population aged 16+ of their experiences of crime and always shows that sexual crimes are heavily under-reported to the police. The gap is even bigger for male victims than for women. 

In other words, you have picked on the most unreliable piece of evidence you could possibly find, and ignored far better sources.

The history behind the current turmoil is too long to go into, and people are entitled to hold all sorts of opinions about the actions of both sides, so long as these are based on facts. As a historian, my objection is to the use of ‘dodgy’ statistics. 

Hamas has deliberately brought nothing but misery to the Palestinians but the Hamas-run Ministry of Health’s death and injury figures look factually accurate to me, and of course there are unknown numbers of bodies buried in the piles of rubble. 

Harriet Lloyd

From our website

EXTRAORDINARY COMMENTS

I wish to contest your “editorial” comments on the post In Defence of Israel, which I find quite extraordinary and unnecessary.

Your claim that the “Israeli Prosecutor’s Office have admitted that no allegations of rape or sexual assault have been filed from the 7 October cross-border attack” are sourced from Jew and Israel hating sources.

What you fail to report is that Moran [Israeli prosecutor Moran Gaz] claimed that the failure to gather evidence could be because the victims are dead or unwilling to approach women’s rights organisations. I know HiP is a completely biased Anti-zionist mouthpiece, but I suggest you stick to local politics. I’m fed up with well-heeled white leftists telling its readers what to think, in what is a highly complex regional war.

Manick Govinda

From our website

ROTTEN ORANGES

I work on the premise that if it has a thick skin you don’t have to do organic. Your article on oranges, Rotten or Ripe in HIP 268, has made me think.

I get organic marmalade as you eat the orange’s skin, but not organic oranges otherwise; definitely get organic tomatoes and strawberries, but only organic bananas to save the poor pickers from handling the toxins.

Liz Coleman

Letter

Dear HIP

In ‘Rotten or Ripe’ (HIP no. 268), Susan McFie explores the issue of fruit picked too early and artificially ripened, and touches on the potential health issues associated with applying pesticides. She says that in the UK there is no information about the chemicals used in production of fruit and vegetables, or about potential residues. In fact, there is an organisation based in Brighton called the Pesticide Action Network (PAN UK–pan-uk.org) which highlights the problems caused by pesticides. The government monitors residue levels of chemicals in food consumed in the UK, and each year PAN analyses the results and publishes the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list. This is the list of fruits and vegetables most likely to be contaminated with multiple pesticides (known as ‘pesticide cocktails’) which they consider pose the highest risk to health: there is a growing body of evidence that chemicals become more harmful when combined. Coincidentally, topping the most recent list are soft citrus fruits closely followed by oranges. As Susan McFie says, the best choice is to opt for organic, but because going all-organic is an unaffordable luxury for most people, this list helps you decide which foods are worth paying the extra for. 

Jill Kaye

From our website

COUNCIL SHAKE-UP

Regarding End Game for Local Councils (HIP 268), this is the biggest reform of local government for 50 years and will profoundly affect all our lives, but it has been almost totally ignored by the mainstream media, both nationally and locally.  So congratulations on writing such a well-informed report.

Derek Read

Gaza: Decades of Atrocities

Dear HIP

In the article Waiting for Answers by Rod Webb (HIP 267) you published a reply by our MP Helena Dollimore to an open letter from Hastings & District Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, calling for her condemnation of Israel’s murder of the Save the Children worker Ahmad Faisal Isleem Al-Qadi and raising other specific questions related to Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. Like most statements by Labour Party MPs, this reply only looks reasonable if you know nothing about Israel/Palestine.

As I write, campaigners are asking: “Where is Dr Hussam Abu Safiya?” This heroic doctor was arrested by Israeli Occupation forces when they stormed the hospital where he worked, and forced his patients, however desperately ill, out into the cold. On 2 January the Israeli Army said they had no record of his arrest. Doubtless he would have disappeared for good if thousands of activists had not been speaking and writing his name. 

Friends of Gaza in Hastings are receiving messages from civilians who are starving and injured, sitting shivering in tents that are now flooding, watching their children starve and fall sick with hypothermia while Israel continues to kill relief workers who attempt to provide aid.

The International Court requires that all governments take action against genocide. We are doing politicians’ jobs because they refuse to do them.

Ms Dollimore says that she considers the death and destruction since 7 October last year unbearable. I would like to ask her whether she found any events in the region before that date unbearable? Is it not unbearable that almost every Palestinian in Gaza is already a refugee several times over? Or that most were herded into Gaza when Israel ran them off their own lands and properties elsewhere in Palestine? Or that most of them have seen relatives abducted, beaten or shot by Israeli military, and some will have experienced that themselves? Isn’t it unbearable that young adults in Gaza now were born into a place that’s walled in, kept short of food and clean water, and bombed? That all the while they were growing up, there were Israeli snipers ready to take pot-shots at them, or to arrest them and carry them off into detention illegally even for peacefully protesting?

Ms Dollimore also says she found it ‘harrowing to meet recently with families of hostages still being held by Hamas’. I’m sure it was and I, too, would offer them every sympathy if I met them. I know this, because I have met families of Palestinians being illegally held, starved and beaten in Israeli jails. about which she says nothing, even though over 6,000 (some of them children) have been incarcerated for long periods under “administrative detention”, i.e. without charge, let alone trial.

In recent weeks, Israel has carried its endless campaign of destruction into three other neighbouring countries (Lebanon, Syria and Yemen) and still had enough fire-power to spare to continue bombing civilians in Gaza. There is no opposition in Palestine that has even a remote fraction of the necessary fire-power to have an impact on that. Israel/Palestine is not a two-sided war. It is an illegal occupation by an army that commits daily, deadly, atrocities, and has

done for decades. For all our sakes, please will our government try to stop them.

Kay Green

Letter

In Defence of Israel

Dear HIP

The key issue regarding genocide, as confirmed by a recent article in the European Journal of International Law, is intent. Without specific premeditated intent, there is no genocide but, rather, collateral damage of war. Never has Israel intended to destroy, obliterate or cause any such harm to the people of Gaza. Conversely, the Hamas manifesto states the desire to destroy Israel and remove its existence from the land, driving the Jews out.

There has been genocide in Sudan/Darfur with 400,000 people killed, women raped and millions of people displaced by government and Janjaweed forces. And in Nigeria, where more people die every month than in Ukraine, it’s estimated that jihadist terrorists have killed over 300,000 children and forcibly displaced over 2.9 million (mainly) Christians. Interesting that not a single march, protest or angry letter to an MP seems to have been made against any of the above, which are clearly genocides, but only when Israel defends itself. I wonder why.

Ethnic cleansing is mentioned. This is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Suggesting that Israel has been involved in direct removal such as deportation, population transfer, or other methods aimed at forced migration preventing return, is simply untrue. Inhabitants of Northern Gaza were asked to move as the Israeli Defence Force was trying to find Hamas and eliminate them. Since then, many have returned to the area without hindrance from the IDF.

The truth is that Gaza was infiltrated by extreme Islamists whose intention is to cleanse the entire area (from the river to the sea) of Jews, Christians, anyone they see as an impediment to setting up a caliphate for the Middle East. They were bankrolled by Iran whose regime states this as its aim. 

Hamas have then perpetrated genocide in Gaza against their own, treating them as expendable. Building tunnels under homes, schools, hospitals; ensconcing command centres under buildings specifically aimed at making the people targets, not protecting them. This is Hamas policy, knowing that when they are attacked there will be deaths of innocent people and that people overseas will take up their cause. It is planned this way, not an accident. The article Waiting for Answers in HIP 267 exactly fell into that trap (in combination with other deeply rooted prejudices), resulting in a completely lop-sided account. 

The real genocide was made by Hamas on 7 October, storming into a kibbutz, murdering, raping and burning 1,200 people and taking over 200 hostages, of which one can assume most are dead. No doubt that if Hamas had more trained operatives they would have done more and that, given the opportunity, they would do exactly the same to the entire country of Israel without a blink.

The history of the Middle East is a long, sad one. Carving up of tribal lands by imperialist powers with no real idea of what they were doing has not helped. There were always tragic wars, hatred between tribes, religions and different branches of those religions, adding to the unfortunate mix. The HIP article does not help at all; if anything it makes matters worse, as there are many very bad, uniformed players who are jumping on the bandwagon to stir up even more hatred and division in our society. Without some moderation and honesty, things will only get worse.

Jonathon Bennett

HIP has decided to publish the letter: In Defence of Israel in the interests of free speech. However editorially we do not accept its contentions and believe many are unsupported by facts. In particular, the Israeli Prosecutor’s Office have admitted that no allegations of rape or sexual assault have been filed from the 7 October cross-border attack. Furthermore, allegations of Israeli genocide on Gaza are supported by the United Nations and Amnesty International

Letter

Potential Building Plots

Dear HIP

Further to the article by Ken Davis in HIP 267, A Personal Vision for More & Better Quality Housing, I would like to draw your attention to the half-demolished former laundry site at the top of Harold Road. It has been like this for some years now. It’s most unfair to the householder who lives on the end of the row. Quite a few houses could be built on this site. Whilst writing, the sites of the former Hollingsworth Garage in Braybrooke Road and the former Stamco in Bexhill Road have been derelict for a considerable time.

Rod Evans

From our website

HOUSING THAT’S NEEDED

As always, Ken Davis makes good points, and I agree with him in regard to the sale of council housing. When he mentions that the emphasis is upon housing targets rather than the quality of the housing, I would go further – we need to focus upon the housing need. By that I mean building the homes the local community needs! Often there is an emphasis upon 1-2-bedroom dwellings, rather than the (more profitable) 3-4-bedroom dwellings beloved of developers. If we are to keep our young people here and provide them with a more stable future, we need to provide them with greater opportunity to get onto the housing ladder, whether by buying or renting. More 1-2-bedroom dwellings in the housing stock will do that – not 3-4 bedrooms attracting London commuters and AirBnB owners.

Bryan Fisher

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From our website

Recycling Scheme Booking ‘Bonkers’

Bonkers. This will encourage fly tipping. Also – I parked outside (perfectly legal – no lines there) and walked in with two sheets of cardboard to avoid a 20-minute queue. I was met by two aggressive employees who started filming me “no walk ins!!”. Suffice to say the cardboard wasn’t recycled….

Harry B 

By all means criticise Councils if they deserve it, but I can’t see what the problem is here. Having lived in various areas where a booking system has been introduced, they worked well and reduced time-wasting queueing. I expect they also deterred people using the centres who were not entitled to [use them]. The proposed system is good provided you can book without having to wait days for a slot. As for the comment “who plans a trip?” – well who doesn’t?

Paul Smith

How would £50,000 a year be saved by a booking system? What would the set-up and maintenance of such a system cost? 

If the idea is to stop commercial chancers dumping their business waste without paying their charge then there are other ways of doing this. Some councils require suitable IDs from the client – a domestic address tied to proof of identity – but rarely enforced except when the refuse looks iffy. A ban on trucks, trailers and vans also maybe. Not perfect but it does work quite well, and ordinary people don’t get hassled.

Neville Austin

‘Currently used successfully’ – presumably this means there is evidence that more waste is being appropriately disposed of as a result of a booking process. Hope it does not simply mean that the system has been introduced without reference to any other measure of its success.

Paul Franczak

Letter

Housing for Locals

Dear HIP

I was saddened to read Peter Bolwell’s letter in HIP 266. The answer to the housing issues in Hastings is not to pull up the drawbridge. Rather, we should welcome the inward investment represented by Londoners and others moving into the area.

Hastings has a wealth of Victorian housing, much of which has been poorly converted and maintained. We have many small local businesses, most of which rely on local expenditure, particularly off-season. The money those maligned Londoners and others bring with them will drive much-needed renovations and provide turnover for our shops and restaurants.

A Hastings that is hostile to such inward investment is doomed to decline and decay.

Graham Seaton

From our website

Housing Targets Row

HBC’s Green-led government is on a hiding to nothing. They want to build new homes but cannot match the old target – let alone the new one set by (Labour) Central Government. The confines and existing development of the Borough constrain any further development. 

In the area of West St Leonards, we have 7 possible brownfield sites, but their suitability is questionable, at best. One is owned by the MoD, who have made no attempt to link its development to maximising housing development; three suffer the threat of landslips; one is ideal for housing development but hosts out-of-sync retail units; one involves the protected South Saxons and floods; and that brings us to the last one, the only remaining sea-adjoining land in the Borough (with considerable construction challenges) that could host leisure/tourism-focused development to improve the Borough’s poor tourist appeal.

I feel sure similar problems exist elsewhere in the Borough, so no artificial targets and financial threats are going to provide the necessary homes. What is needed is a UK-wide approach to build where it is feasible, and where the infrastructure can support the homes. I would also suggest that until developers are restricted from focusing upon luxury dwellings (suited to being second homes or attractive AirB&Bs), and instead redirected to maximising the use of sites for much-needed 1-2 bedroom dwellings, we will continue to waste opportunities!

Mr. Bryan Fisher

From our website

Reform Politician Sidelined

Forgive me for not weeping for Lucian, tolerance of the intolerant (Reform UK are definitely in the intolerant area of the spectrum, see 90% of their policies) only leads to degradation of tolerance. Not to mention, someone with views like Lucian and the party he represents should not be employed by an extension of the government. 

George Prince 

When he “was employed by Southeastern railway in 2021 as an agency worker” I had the displeasure of working with this man. He was horrible and sexist and reading this now and discovering he was taken on full time just makes me feel sorry for my ex-colleagues who had to put up with him for even longer. Good riddance. Surely a man of such high standing won’t struggle to find work elsewhere.

Rose Doyle

What a bizarre case. The Southern diversity and inclusion website states: “Our ambition is to create an inclusive culture where customers and colleagues feel able to be themselves and feel they belong to, and can add value to, their local communities.” Respecting different political opinions, especially when expressed out of work hours, must surely be part of this. Standing in elections really fits this brief!! It would be interesting to see the warning letter Southern wrote if there was one. ACAS guidance is generally pretty clear in my experience.

Nigel Jacklin

Letter

Azur’s Value to the Community

Dear HIP

We are co-directors and current teachers of St Leonards Studio CIC, which was originally created to provide an affordable and secure venue for complementary health and well-being care because of a lack of affordable and secure venues in the town.  Our aim is to bring like-minded teachers together and encourage the growth of these arts for community benefit.

For three years David Thorpe-Tracey accommodated St Leonards Studio CIC at Azur. He supported our vision of turning an unused part of the building into our own studio.

Sea Change knew of our work, our interest and how many members of the community we were helping. Assurances that we would be put in touch with interested parties to discuss community participation via our studio have not come to fruition.

In February 2024, after the closure, we applied for the building to become an Asset of Community Value. We have not yet heard from Planning about the outcome of this application.

Sea Change chose to seal the building in the full knowledge of the leaks that were a constant blight on all activities. We dread to think of the extra costs incurred.

We are grateful to the Royal Victoria Hotel for offering us the Burton Suite as an alternative to Azur. We hope that the repair works that “remain under way” [As You Were at Azur in HIP 266] include the fixing of the leaking roof. Otherwise, this building continues to be disgracefully neglected.

Annie Cryar, Zowie Martin, Karen Simnett, Karen Hayler, Paula Conway, Lousie Carlyle, April Yasamee, Surrinder Chera, Catherine Burnett, Andrea Corso, James Loosemore, Gabrielle Lewry, Marjolyn Schreuder.

Letter

Not Council’s Responsibility  

Dear HIP

Your article in HIP 263 A Landslide for Local Democracy? about the Old Roar Gill makes no sense. If, as you say, the land on which the affected buildings are standing doesn’t belong to Hastings Borough Council (HBC), and  the footpath belongs to East Sussex County Council (ESCC) then HBC isn’t responsible for the damage. The developer who built the houses is responsible, because it was his land and he should have done the stress tests on it.  Since there are several streams that discharge into Alexandra Park, that is a mandatory precaution. 

If the surveyors from the insurance companies have concluded that the developer is responsible because the foundations were not good enough for the terrain, then it will be the developer who needs to repair, and to compensate the owners for the landslides. The footpath is ESCC’s responsibility, not HBC’s. But a footpath itself can’t be responsible for a landslide as it is only for walkers – unless residents were using any kind of heavy vehicles on the footpath. I am sure the residents are very upset, but I don’t see why the taxpayer in Hastings is expected to compensate anyone since this is a development on private land. 

It is the developer’s insurance that needs to address this issue, and the insurers of individual owners. If the developer isn’t insured or hasn’t made the requisite land survey or hasn’t erected the proper foundations for the type of soil, they are responsible. Normally all owners are insured too. I feel for them, but it is the personal responsibility of everyone to do proper surveys before buying a property.

T Gillham 

Letter

Old Roar Gill Water overload

Whilst I fully understand the Hastings Borough Council decision of a straightforward 50/50 split on the proposed investigative costs in this matter, this only identifies the land ownership rather than the causes of the slippages. Having observed the water running through the ghyll and the attendant development around and above it for over 30 years, it is clear there has been a lack of maintenance within the ghyll itself in order to ensure good water flow.  

What has not so far been mentioned in determining responsibility is the huge increase in water load into the stream. There has been continued small-scale infill along Old Roar Road itself which has no drainage – in heavy rain large amounts of water can be seen issuing over the road edge into the ghyll. There is also the much larger development to the north in the Little Ridge area and the Conquest Hospital. This was added over many years without considering what  the effects might be on the sides of the ghyll at a steep narrow section. 

Culpability in this sorry tale must therefore also lie with the owners of Old Roar Road and with Southern Water, who added substantial flow into the stream as an easy and low-cost solution rather than doing the thorough engineering job that was needed.

Ken Davis

From our website

Too Many Roundabouts

Although I have been aware of this project for years (Finally, a Road to Somewhere in HIP 259), I have only recently taken an interest in it. It seems to me that the new road will solve some problems but in most cases will make no difference or, indeed, make traffic flow more complicated.

East Sussex County Council say that there will be “better connectivity between Bexhill and Hastings.” It would be more accurate to say better connectivity between Bexhill and the A21 to the north of Hastings.

Apart from that, the route between The Ridge and the A21 (both directions) will be more complicated. Instead of, at present, traffic having to negotiate two junctions, there will be The Ridge/Queensway mini-roundabout, the Queensway/Queensway Gateway roundabout, the Queensway Gateway/Whitworth Road roundabout and a new roundabout at the junction of Whitworth Road and the A21. Four roundabouts within about half a mile does not seem wise. I am thinking that southbound drivers from The Ridge (hospital direction) will use Harrow Lane instead.

Why close Junction Road completely to traffic?  Closing one road at the same time as opening one new road just means the traffic is moved from one place to another.  Already The Ridge/Queensway junction gets congested. Leaving Junction Road open to left-turning traffic only would spread the load.

David Stevenson

Letter

Sharing Caring

Dear HIP

I enjoyed Educating Ourselves About Health in HIP 257, though
was sorry I couldn’t find to whom the very thoughtful piece was
credited. The author’s reflections on perimenopause were particularly powerful.

If our Hastings community is indeed to be a place of support and care, that surely starts right from early life: making sure that girls aren’t raised to accept as their inevitable lot in life the sole, onerous
responsibility for caregiving.

Sharing that burden more equitably with others in the first place might avoid the decades-long build-up of fatigue and self-denial that may make menopausal symptoms more severe than they might otherwise be.

Katharine Manning

Letter

A Good Samaritan on East Hill

Dear HIP

Friday 13th is a date to avoid for some, but for us it was a reminder of the good nature that still exists in people, and we would like to use your pages to thank the person or people who found my husband’s smartphone and handed it to the Police. 

We were walking on East Hill, and feared the worst when we realised it had been left behind on a bench and subsequently disappeared. As a minimum we would be faced with the inconvenience of numerous bank and store card cancellations, plus having to recreate the on-line world that we all live in these days and of course the cost of purchasing a replacement device. At worst we feared the possible consequences of criminal activity should it have fallen into the wrong hands.  A frantic search ensued until we were finally able to obtain an answer (my husband has his device permanently on “do not disturb” of course!) from someone who, to our great delight, turned out to be a police officer.

We were hugely relieved to find out that it had been handed in, and the whole episode was over and done with in less than two hours.  The Good Samaritan in this story did not leave their name but, if they are reading this, we would like to offer them our grateful thanks – and to the staff at Hastings Police Station who were also incredibly pleasant and helpful.

With much gratitude to all concerned.

Steve & Jacky Wolton

Letter

Don’t Believe the Daily Mail 

Dear HIP

Was I alone in rubbing my eyes in disbelief to read recently in the Daily Mail (13 September) that Hastings was ranked among “Britain’s best high streets”?

Featuring a large photo of the “arty” George Street, the piece went on to praise the High Street and talked of “upmarket homeware shops and artisan bakeries”, saying it “was all about vintage stores”.

Well, maybe, but I hardly know anyone who shops in the Old Town. “Too expensive; just for visitors” is the common refrain.

But this year the visitors have not been coming, and many traders report footfall and takings are up to 30 per cent down on last year. 

George Street is eerily quiet from 6pm on a Sunday evening right through until tea-time Thursday when the DFLs arrive with their suitcases on wheels. Some shops and pubs do not even bother to open on a Monday.

Coach parties from Eastbourne are dropped off at the Stade, and after covering our three famous streets, these elderly folk often ask “Excuse me, which way is the New Town?” To which I have developed a rather dispiriting reply: 

“Go straight ahead to the burned-out night club site; turn right past the street sleepers, abandoned shopping trolleys, boarded-up shops and graffiti-covered walls until you come to the underpass. When you find yourself stepping on litter from Sports Direct, Costa Coffee and McDonalds, you have arrived. And mind the scores of mobility scooters and kids on electric bikes.”

Hastings one of Britain’s best high streets? Someone is having a laugh.

Michael Collinson

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Letter

Hastings Housing Company

Dear HIP,

I write in response to the letter ‘Housing Company Needed’ from 13 August.

Hastings Housing Company Ltd was incorporated on 1 September 2017 and is a wholly owned company of the Council.

Hastings Borough Council has made no decision to liquidate Hastings Housing Company Ltd. At the Cabinet meeting on 22 July 2024 a report was presented that provided an update about the position of the Housing Company and proposed a number of recommendations to implement best practice in the running of the company and to improve governance arrangements. All six recommendations were approved, including one to produce a revised business plan for consideration by the Council. The business plan is to include potential options for the direction of travel for the company including disbanding, enlargement, and alternative uses, for example with the potential to build truly affordable homes. The revised business plan is due to be completed by 31 March 2025, after allowing for a six-to-nine-month period to assess how the management of the company’s portfolio by the Council proceeds. The Housing Company will continue to trade as normal during this time.

Councillor Glenn Haffenden, Lead Councillor for Housing
and Community Wellbeing

Editor’s Note: The original HIP article did not state that HBC had decided to liquidate the HHC, rather that they had commissioned a review.

From our website

Government Mistakes in Housing 

The Greens are absolutely right to point out (Housing Targets ‘Ridiculous and Unrealistic’ in HIP 258) the absurdity of this top down approach to providing more housing. The mistake made by successive governments with housing is to think numbers first and quality last, and this has left us with a legacy of expensive and hard-to-maintain housing stock. 

From Ronan Point to Grenfell, minimal budgets have led to major mistakes. 

The other fundamental mistake in Hastings, though, has been to build too many low-rise, low density, suburban houses from the developer book of standard house plans. Higher density on the right sites can be a good thing, but it requires careful thought and imagination by the developer, the planning authority, and the public. 

Another major mistake by government is to continue with the absurdity of separated uses, and allowing retail use on what were meant to be industrial/employment areas, themselves built at very low density. 

Land has long been considered as readily available in a town like Hastings. There continues to be a great deal of unused or under-used land in public ownership in Hastings – from Hastings Borough Council to East Sussex County Council, and from Railtrack to the Ministry of Defence – which could be used and must now be seriously reviewed and pursued if both more housing and better housing is to be built.

Kenneth G Davis

Letter

Allowing Dogs Everywhere Is Not Inclusive

Dear HIP

There have been many pro dog articles published by yourselves recently. With the imminent council dog consultation coming up with regard to removing the ban of dogs on parts of the beach, I think it fair to present an alternative view.

I and many others have allergy to dogs, so do not want other people’s dogs near us.  When I go to the beach, dogs inevitably run all over where we are sitting, jump up at me or my young child, and owners think this is ok.  Unless I am prepared to get into a confrontation, I have to just let this perpetual intrusion that risks my health happen.  

If I do ask people to keep their dog away from us, they rarely do, expressing in one way or another that they think it’s ok for their dog to do this. It’s not! It is far from relaxing, and it is not fair. I have to be on constant alert. But I should have the right to choose too.

I choose not to have a dog and not to be close to them, but this choice is taken away from me by dogs and their owners. I also choose to go to the beach where dogs are not allowed, this choice again is taken away by the amount of people who disregard this. Dogs pooing on the beach is also a constant issue, as is dogs fighting, and getting aggressive with each other, again not a very nice vibe for trying to enjoy time at the beach. 

It has been portrayed that allowing dogs is inclusive. It is not, it excludes many people: those with allergy, fears, and those that just don’t like dogs, or the constant intrusion of others’ dogs.

An all-year ban on dogs on a part of the beach would be a fair addition to the current debate. The beach, which is a public space, should be a space that is first and foremost inclusive for all people.

Ben Muller

Letter

Importance Of Dog Exclusions

Dear HIP

With regard to Paul McLaughlin’s article Paws for Shores in HIP 257, the Public Space Protection Order regarding dogs on certain sections of beach was simply renewed this year after it was allowed to elapse during Covid. In other words, as in all other coastal towns in Sussex and Kent, in the summer months some beaches are for walking dogs and some are for those who want to enjoy the beach without dogs. 

Dogs are allowed on the beach from the west of Hastings Pier to the west end of Bottle Alley and from opposite the Royal Victoria Hotel until the border with Rother (where their restrictions take over). The current consultation concerns the Stade and Rock-a-Nore, as those in the Old Town feel they do not have a beach that is sufficiently near to walk their dogs.

Although the dog lobby may be vocal and loud, there is also a significant group of people who want to enjoy beaches without dogs. Sections of beach where dogs are excluded are important. They enable everyone, and especially children, to play without fear of acquiring zoonotic diseases from dog faeces. They also allow people to enjoy a beach without fear of being harassed and intimidated by uncontrolled dogs, which can be frightening to the elderly, children, and those who do not know if the dog poses a threat, and can lead to stressful interactions with dog owners. 

Rowena Rowling

From our website

Combining Attractions

What Ken Davis is proposing (in Embracing Change, HIP 257) in combining three attractions, St Mary-in-the-Castle, Hastings Castle and the Smugglers Caves, makes sense. Two of the three do not survive without subsidies but, combined as attractions, they could prosper. Of course, it would require first-rate marketing and operation; but surely that can be delegated under a Hastings Borough Council nominee project manager?

Bryan Fisher

From our website

Offal On The Menu 

I thoroughly enjoyed The Poverty of Modern British Cuisine in HIP 258 as a constructive romp through British cuisine – or the loss of it, maybe.

Just to note that Delia Smith’s books are still on the bestsellers lists after several decades. Although I cannot find a brawn recipe, liver, kidneys and tripe are there if we put the effort in to follow one rather than just watching Masterchef and ordering in fast food. So offal as a real food is at least still possible.

Thanks for the article, I can fully attest to Hungarian cuisine, although the English version of goulash bears no resemblance to the original!

Mark Searle

From our website

Blocking Dropped Kerbs

Penny Pepper – well done for pointing out this issue (Pavements, Potholes and Blocking of Dropped Kerbs in HIP 258). I’ve experienced better traffic warden control of parking at Folkestone, where cars that block a lowered pavement near the council office always get fined. If only it happened everywhere!

Nicola Dalleywater

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Housing Company Needed

Dear HIP

I am dismayed to learn that the Green-led Hastings Borough Council (HBC) is proposing to liquidate Hastings Housing Company (HHC) and sell its housing assets (Massive Council Losses in HIP 257). My understanding is that HHC was set up to help HBC to meet housing demand in the borough.

Obviously the letting agent should have been sacked sooner, and HBC needs to pursue it for both the money withheld and costs.

There has been a massive underspend in Home England’s affordable housing programme in recent years. Billions of pounds have been returned to the Treasury. 

Theoretically HBC/HHC could bid for this money (capital grant) to assist with the refurbishment costs of affordable housing dwellings e.g. possibly 22 Wellington Square.

There is an urgent need to provide more social and other affordable housing in Hastings, and I am sure cooperative housing could play a part, along with the council considering to resurrect the Housing Revenue Account so that it could provide new council housing beyond the de minimis 200 dwelling limit. One would hope that local housing associations could play a part, but it is disappointing some continue to sell off social dwellings.

In the interests of transparency, I am a former affordable housing consultant and member of the Labour Party

Andy Seddon

Letter

St Mary Under Threat

Dear HIP

I write to express my agreement with Trish Peak (letter in HIP 256), who said how short-sighted it would be if St. Mary-in-the-Castle was allowed to fall into disrepair once more. The centrepiece of Pelham Crescent has in the past been described as a jewel in the crown with its magnificent domed interior and renowned acoustics. It was a split decision when the Council took the bold step of purchasing St. Mary’s to prevent it from demolition, and with ownership comes responsibility.

St. Mary’s was saved and restored thanks to the determination of the then Friends of St. Mary-in-the=Castle, with considerable input from the Old Hastings Preservation Society. A similar level of determination and vision is now required once more with the Council leading the way. External sources of funding are out there and must be explored before it’s too late. To hesitate is to lose.

We must not let St. Mary-in-the Castle join the long list of what Hastings might have had but then failed to seize at the crucial moment. Think of a county-standard cricket ground, a marina, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a seafront tram system, a Turner gallery, a dual carriageway by-pass to the West Country. The list goes on. Remember that we once had a Hastings Embroidery, an Albert Memorial, an award-winning tourism centre and an Old Town Museum. All these are now in the distant past. Please don’t allow St. Mary-in-the Castle to be added to that sorely missed list.

Richard Stevens 

Former Mayor
& Leader of the Council

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Letter

PLAY FAIR

Dear HIP

My name is Juniper. I am 9 years old, and I live in Hastings. I am writing to you about the playgrounds in our town. When our play equipment breaks and gets taken away it doesn’t come back. My local park doesn’t even have swings anymore!

None of our playgrounds are even that good. Most playgrounds are better than ours, for example Bexhill’s or Battle’s or Rye’s. Bexhill has Egerton Park which has amazing play equipment for all ages. Battle has a  H U G E  castle you can climb around in. Last but not least, Rye has really fun and unusual play equipment like the big spinner.

I want the council to give us better playgrounds because if we don’t fix this now everyone out of Hastings will think that we have bad play equipment and people won’t come and stay in our hotels or come and visit. And that is bad for the town’s economy.

Don’t Hastings kids deserve to have fun too? 

Yours faithfully,

Juniper

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Future of St Mary

Dear HIP

Christopher Cormack is right (Letter in HIP 255): St Mary-in-the-Castle is a gem, which is being allowed to fall into disrepair whilst available funding is destined for the ruins of Hastings castle.

How short-sighted is this! Our seafront is becoming a disgrace to the town, yet there is the obvious opportunity to revitalise. St Mary’s should be the centre of all our artistic and musical activities. Shame on the council if they fail to understand.

Trish Peak

Letter

Our New MP

Dear HIP,

I was impressed to see our new Labour MP, Helena Dollimore, hit the ground running this week. Not long after taking her solemn oath in parliament, she was meeting with the Minister for Education, Catherine McKinnell MP, to discuss the University of Brighton Academies Trust withholding vital funding from local schools.

As a proud trade unionist, I backed Helena for MP as she had proven herself to be a formidable campaigner with a consistent record of standing up for our public services: whether it be shining a light on local ambulance response times, or successfully campaigning against the dangerous downgrading of The Ridge Community Fire Station.

After fourteen years of Tory cronyism, corruption and scandal, I am proud to know that Hastings and Rye has an MP who will be a strong, passionate voice for us in parliament.

Michael Etheridge

Letter

Options at Clifton Court

Dear HIP

Regarding Clifton Court (and other properties no doubt), of course outsiders like me do not, as yet, have all the facts that appear to make demolition and re-build a sensible course of action. Let us hope a logical case follows. But to the casual, and even the informed observer, the decision by Orbit appears to be completely without foundation.

As someone who has designed and project-managed large scale refurbishment contracts on both housing estates and multi-storey blocks of flats, the building seems to be structurally sound, while issues such as mould can quite easily be dealt with by the introduction of external wall insulation and heat recovery ventilation. As for the ‘not up to modern space standards’ case, most buildings in Hastings do not meet them, as those standards have steadily risen over the years. In my view the present space appears adequate enough and even has potential to be increased.

What is more, the two blocks almost certainly have considerable scope for adding further units. Subject to structural checks the roof might take another two floors, and both the gap between the blocks and the land on the north east side along Linton Road could probably take a stack of one-bedroomed flats.

Moreover, isn’t the site within a conservation area where the planners have every right to expect a high standard not only of design but of sustainability? Retro-fitting these buildings in a creative way could solve both the technical and aesthetic standards that such a wonderful location demands.

Ken Davis

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Letter

Hostile to the Jewish Community

Dear HIP

I drew the short straw and attended what I knew would be a hostile Hastings hustings, in order to offer snarky live text commentary to voters in the Hastings Jewish community. My suspicions were confirmed in the queue on the way in, where I had to dodge insistent attempts to give me a flyer for this upcoming weekend’s PSC ‘peace’ camp. No thanks.

As a left-wing voter who doesn’t advocate for the complete dismantlement of the state of Israel, I was less surprised by the content of the hustings, which included an opening statement that didn’t reference Hastings at all and a blatantly antisemitic dog-whistle that the British government is a ‘servant of Israel’, than I was by the nasty contingent at the back who booed the two frontrunners for even mentioning Hamas and chanted ‘Ceasefire Now!’ over moderate and reasonable calls for a two-state solution.

I did, however, notice some quietly clapping at this stance. Perhaps there were some adults in the room last night after all.

For what it’s worth, I offer my advice to those in the Hastings and Rye electorate who do not subscribe to the dominant Leftist stance on Gaza. If you, like me, are a left-wing voter, Labour – which supports recognising Palestine as part of a two-state solution – is the only safe choice. Additionally, Helena Dollimore’s stances on local issues such as the water and housing crises don’t substantially differ from those of her counterparts further to the Left, but do not come with a noxious side helping of unexamined antisemitism and unquestioned Hamas propaganda.

If you lean further to the Right than me, Sally-Ann Hart (Conservative) also supports a two-state solution, whilst Lucian Fernando (Reform) declined to take a stance on an international issue, preferring instead to focus on local issues. I disagree with him on just about everything else he mentioned, but hey, a broken clock is right twice a day.

And if you don’t plan to vote at all, after last night I frankly don’t blame you. Just try to enjoy your Thursday.

Sincerely,

Dana Polatin

Letter

Candidate Deposits

Dear HIP

The article Candidate Proliferation in HIP 254 ended with the suggestion of raising the sum for candidate deposits. My policy proposal would be to lower the threshold of return of deposit to 1% rather than the currently required 5% of votes. 

I’ve not researched other Independent candidates, though I did have a scheme to set up a body of Independents backed by Dominic Cummings that fell through. So what was the cost for this Independent to become #PublicEnemyNumber2 in the constituency, after the Tory candidate? Psychic difficulty, though it only takes one ‘I respected his ‘Have A Go’ energy’ to counteract many haters/dismissers. 

In the 2017 election, Amber Rudd’s narrow victory was attributed to the candidacy of ‘Mr Ethical’ [an Independent Nicholas Wilson polled 412 votes, 66 more than her majority]. That didn’t just leave a bad taste in some constituents’ mouths. My longest-standing friend Chris Gidlow said publicly that, if he had a free pass for one murder, Mr Ethical would be his chosen victim. Seeing me stand as Independent candidate a second time, albeit without hustings attendance or a campaign leaflet going to every door, Chris has ended our friendship, telling me to never contact him again. 

I won’t turn this into a sob story: the price of a dedicated Independent cause like #MoveForwardMoreTogether#50PerCentToElectAnMP rather than the divisive fruits of proportional representation is high enough already. My next book Independent Candidate Dilemmas, fired up by the Labour purge of Faiza Shaheen in #ChingfordMarginal, will nonetheless be published for free on 2066.uk.

Paul Crosland, Independent Candidate, Hastings & Rye

Letter

St Mary in the Castle an Electoral Issue

Dear HIP,

Further to my article Castles in the Air in HIP 252, I thought it good to hear what Hastings’ electoral candidates had to say about the future of St Mary in the Castle. I received replies from Guy Harris (Liberal Democrat), Lucian Fernando (Reform) and Becca Horn (Green). It speaks volumes that neither Sally Ann Hart (Conservative) nor Helena Dollimore (Labour) saw fit to respond to my emails despite reminders.

The Green, Liberal and Reform candidates were supportive of trying to find a solution to this problem of neglect, and accepted that money from the Foreshore Trust might reasonably form part of an ongoing solution to core funding, since the Trust revenues clearly benefit from any extra footfall generated around an active arts centre at St Mary in the Castle. 

Now that the Greens are in power at Hastings Borough Council, Becca Horn referred the issue to Council Leader, Julia Hilton, who responded more circumspectly that  “any decision on contributing to [St Mary’s] upkeep would need to be put to the Charity Committee as part of the next stage of a new business plan.” Ms Hilton also said that the iconic building needed at least £2 million spending. Interesting that the Council is willing to spend £5m+ of ‘levelling up’ money on the Castle ruin but implies that £2m is a tall order for St Mary in the Castle. 

Who cares for our St Mary in the Castle? We obviously can expect nothing from the two main contenders, Conservative and Labour who did not like to comment at all. Perhaps we should explore voting for one of the other candidates, Reform, Liberal Democrat or Green, who pay lip service at least to local democratic accountability and are willing to look for solutions. 

Christopher Cormack

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Dear HIP,

We have written to all the General Election candidates in Kent, East Sussex, and some in Essex asking them to sign up to the Bring Back Euro Trains pledges. 

We are asking candidates, if elected, to commit to:

Advocate for the Resumption of Services by Eurostar: actively lobby Eurostar to reinstate services to Ashford and Ebbsfleet, emphasising the community, business, and economic benefits of these connections.

Lobby for Party and Government Commitments: urge support for the reinstatement of Kent international rail services at the national level including in policy.

Encourage Alternative Providers: encourage competition from other private and/or public-backed rail operators to serve these stations to enhance choice, affordability, and reliability, and work for a conducive environment that minimises barriers to entry and facilitates a level playing field. Advocate for substantial British ownership and control of new services where possible.

Secure Permanent Services: strive to embed minimum service levels for Ashford and Ebbsfleet into legal agreements, ensuring that these publicly funded stations are guaranteed their international services,

and preventing future cessations.    

Engage with Stakeholders: cultivate partnerships with local government, business leaders, transport groups, and constituents to create a robust support network for international rail services, reflecting the

interests of citizens and all stakeholders.

Highlight Environmental Benefits: emphasise the environmental advantages

of international rail travel over air and road transport, contributing to the UK’s carbon reduction goals.

Promote Future-proofing Infrastructure Investments: advocate for future-proofing investment in the infrastructure at Ashford and Ebbsfleet to ensure they are equipped to handle increased international traffic and expanding services.

Recognise the National Importance of International Rail: champion a holistic and joined up approach to the UK rail network by helping to develop a comprehensive national strategy that includes international rail, underscoring its role and benefits at a national level.

Champion Ashford and Ebbsfleet as Regional Hubs: highlight the potential of Ashford and Ebbsfleet as regional hubs that can distribute international passengers across the region, reducing congestion in London, improving regional connectivity, and promoting sustainable travel.

Bushra Akhtar, Chair of Bring Back Euro Trains.

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Goodbye and Thank You

Dear HIP

My husband and I ended up staying in East Sussex with our daughter due to the war in our home country, Ukraine. We want to say big thank-you to British people for the hospitality and support we met here. Especially health service in Sussex was an amazing experience. High level of professionalism and attitude of care helped us to feel safe. Our family doctor at the Northiam Surgery was exceptionally kind and caring. 

Now, after two years, we are on our way back to Ukraine, missing our home country too much. We hope one day to see our garden in Kherson and come to visit the UK as ordinary guests.

Mrs Valentyna Herzon

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Letter

Trinity Triangle: Jess Steele Responds

Dear HIP

In response to Alex Moojen’s letter in HIP 249 about the Trinity Triangle High Street Heritage Action Zone (TTHAZ) programme, we would like to clarify the purpose and allocation of funding, and invite people to our next open, public meeting. 

High Street Heritage Action Zones (HAZs) were a £95 million government-funded initiative for 2020-24 with multiple schemes across the country. Funds were not set aside specifically for any particular town or high street, but places could apply against strict criteria and in competition with other bids. The successful bid for TTHAZ was written in 2019 by a group of partners led by Heart of Hastings CLT (now Hastings Commons CLT). It focused on a set of specific projects that had emerged over many years of local work and community engagement in the White Rock area, and included direct allocations for the rescue of the Observer Building (OB) and 12 Claremont. 

TTHAZ proved able to deliver while other schemes struggled with Covid-related delays. That led Historic England to allocate additional funding to support the OB, as there was a clear funding gap and the ability to spend within strict timeframes because contractors were already on site. Both the OB and 12 Claremont are under ongoing development with further funding from other sources, and the impacts and benefits for the neighbourhood will emerge over many years.

Although Historic England rules meant the HAZ could not directly fund church renovation, we made grants to His Place and Holy Trinity churches to help them with fundraising, leading to successful applications to National Lottery Heritage Fund which will bring a further £5m+ into the neighbourhood over the coming years to renovate these two heritage assets at risk. 

The Maintenance Club enables building owners who opt in to benefit collectively from awkward maintenance works such as gutter-clearing to help prevent future deterioration. This experimental project has been recognised by Historic England as an important innovation, and is likely to continue and expand under the leadership of the Love Hastings BID (Business Improvement District). 

The Neighbourhood Stories/Cultural Programme strand supported more than 30 community-based cultural and creative projects. 

We are proud of what we’ve achieved, but also recognise that it had limitations and faced some big challenges. There will always be different views about how to spend a limited pot of funding. In my 20 years in Hastings I’ve had many thousands of conversations with local people about priorities – tackling dereliction in a way that retains the character, diversity and affordability of the place has been a constant theme, and that’s what Hastings Commons is about.

We remain committed to ongoing engagement and transparency. Following our first open Q & A meeting in February, a second is now scheduled for 6pm on 17th September, and all are welcome. Details are at hastingscommons.com/about/frequently-asked-questions. We have already expanded these FAQs to include a dedicated page with details of all the TTHAZ funding, including how it was allocated and spent in accordance with the grant’s objectives.

Jess Steele, CEO, Hastings Commons CLT

Letter

Coralroot Not So Rare

Dear Editor

I was interested to read (Land of Giants in HIP 250) that David Dennis has rediscovered coralroot (Cardamine bulbifera) in Beauport Park. I’m not the only local who knows it’s there, and it’s good to learn it’s still present, as it’s been known in Beauport Park for nearly 100 years. 

However, I was rather surprised to read that “we must not say exactly where it is”. Although coralroot is only native in two quite restricted habitats in England, it is not classed as rare, and where it grows it can be abundant. For example, it can be found in a number of places in Church Wood Local Nature Reserve (LNR) in St Leonards, as I am sure a fair number of locals know. 

Coralroot is easy enough to recognise. It has pinkish-purple flowers with four petals, leaves with one to seven leaflets, and small dark purple ‘baby bulbs’ (technically known as bulbils) sitting between the leaf stalk and the stem. It looks not dissimilar to the related but much more common cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis), also called lady’s smock, but this plant has pale pink to white flowers and does not produce bulbils. And coralroot looks nothing like coralbells (Heuchera sanguinea), which is a popular garden plant and which occasionally naturalises on rough ground and waste tips. 

Like coralbells, coralroot is also planted in gardens, though it does not seem to be widely available. In places it too has leapt the garden fence and is now increasingly found naturalised in woodland and parkland and by roads and streamsides, outside of its native locations in the Weald and the Chilterns. 

By the time this letter is published, coralroot flowers in Church Wood may well be nearly over, but the bulbils tend to hang on till June and can help to identify it. (If pictures would be helpful there are some very good photos at plantatlas2020.org/atlas/2cd4p9h.xhw). It is certainly still worth looking for and, even if you don’t spot it, a spring walk in Church Wood LNR will turn up many other beautiful plants, not to mention an array of birds, butterflies, bees and other creatures.

Of course, just because coralroot isn’t classed as rare doesn’t mean it’s not worth caring about. All wildlife (by which I include plants) matters, common or otherwise. I believe knowing (not necessarily by name) is one means of protecting. The more people who become familiar with their wildlife, the more they will cherish it and value nature for its own sake, and the more they will be prepared to defend it if and when it needs defending.

Dr Judy Clark

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Letter

Future of Jack-in-the-Green

Dear HIP

HIP 249 ran an article headlined Jack-in-the-Green Future ‘At Risk’.  Those of you who, like me, love this festival will be relieved to hear that in fact its future is not in the least at risk. 

The budget agreed by the former Labour administration in December 2023 allocated £5,000 to JITG for 2024-25. Funding for the following year will be allocated in the next budget.

The independent Grant Advisory Panel (GAP) of the Foreshore Trust, which makes recommendations on grant applications, found that the sustainability requirement in the recent application by JITG was not met. The JITG committee have been informed that there is another round of funding for festivals due in June, and advice will be offered by the independent chair of the GAP as to how to create a successful funding application. There are ongoing conversations with the JITG committee about how to ensure that this much-loved festival remains sustainable into the future, and I can categorically say that this festival would continue to be enthusiastically supported by a Green-led administration

Cllr Julia Hilton

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Letter

Waiting for Improvement

Dear HIP,

On a recent evening my wife had a fall and I drove her to A&E at the Conquest Hospital. The time taken for triage, consultation, a CT scan and, finally, admission to the surgical assessment ward was 12 hours. My wife is nearly 80 years of age, has Parkinson’s disease and is frail. The experience of waiting for that long in an uncomfortable, noisy, very bright, crowded, hot and not very clean room was, in itself, a hazard to health. 

That said, all the staff we met – triage, doctor, radiographer, nurses – were efficient, courteous, kindly and very hard working. I saw no evidence of wastage or time-wasting.

The wait gave me the opportunity to talk to a number of other outpatients. I would guess that only a third required emergency treatment. Time and again I heard the same story: they had tried to arrange an appointment with their GP, none was available, they were referred to the 111 NHS helpline and, in turn, advised to attend A&E.

I have travelled a good deal in Europe, have friends who live there, and my experience is that healthcare in neighbouring countries is far better. I now spend time in retirement volunteering locally. This role gives me the chance to meet many international visitors, but I am often embarrassed by their own bewildered observations of our deteriorating local environment: an outdated infrastructure; poor quality yet expensive public transport, especially train; traffic-crowded and poorly surfaced roads, and a near total absence of cycle lanes – unlike Holland, and Germany. They are also aware of the visible local poverty with boarded-up shops and rough sleeping. 

I blame our Government for robbing essential services – health, education, transport – of the support, encouragement and systemic structure they need to be vital and productive. On the other hand, those who give so little to public service seem over-rewarded, ‘honoured’, and free from responsible accountability.

Now, almost 80, having worked hard all my life and with some knowledge of public services, I have never seen things as bad as they are. How can our government have allowed this appalling situation to develop?

I have written more in sorrow than anger, to my local MP Huw Merriman. He has not earned and will not receive my vote; but then I have little faith in the official opposition. I should like a reply to my letter but anticipate it will merely parade the familiarly fatuous spending figures and a declared commitment to the health service, which, after my wife’s very difficult experience and that of others I talk to, can only sound hollow. 

Name and address supplied. 

Letter

Embarrassing Council

Dear HIP, 

What a great, but at the same time shocking, article you published by Elspeth Tiddlypush (The Chamber of Horrors in HIP 246).

Hastings and St Leonards has a great and proud history and, even now, some of that history is reflected in our beautiful town.  The fact that our Council chooses to meet in one of the worst buildings in the town, ridiculously called Muriel Matters House, in a room lacking in any charm and clearly not fit for purpose, says it all.

Where is the leadership, where is the flair?  It is little wonder much of the money flowing into the town is bypassing the Council and ending up with bodies such as Hastings Commons – an organisation itself facing questions around accountability, it would appear.

I trust our councillors will read and reflect on Elspeth Tiddlypush’s piece.  Hastings has more than its fair share of issues.  Where the Council meets is not high on that list but it is a symptom. One of Elspeth’s bleak conclusions is: “If this is our local democracy in action, it is embarrassing.” The sad truth is that the decisions emanating out of the Council seem equally embarrassing. The Council needs to step up and embrace its leadership role. It could start by publishing a new Statutory Plan.

Graham Seaton

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from our website

Extreme Vandalism

So a violent attack on elderly people by masked thugs and extreme vandalism of their property is effectively ignored by Sussex Police even though they actually have enough evidence to find and prosecute the culprits (New Year Assault on Hunt Sabs in HIP 246). 

The police claims of “ongoing investigations” are nonsense and they are hoping everyone will forget about it. Just more proof that the police are not there to serve the people or uphold the law, but see their job as protecting the ruling classes and their minions.  How are these marauding gangs of countryside reprobates allowed to break numerous laws with impunity week in, week out? All so that they can carry on hunting foxes with hounds with numerous road traffic offences, assaults, threats, vandalism, criminal damage and thefts of property regular occurrences. 

It’s time for this anachronistic and psychopathic pantomime to end – our wildlife is one of the most depleted in the world thanks to hunters, ‘game’ shoots and certain farmers..

Andrew Nash 

Letter

I Love my Bike

I support the plans to make Hastings more bike friendly as part of the Town Centre Public Realm & Green Connections Project.

We are a family of cyclists – I’m married to a Dutchman who thinks the British bike/car culture war is a bit weird. In Holland, almost one third of journeys are by bike. Able-bodied Dutch people of all ages and politics generally choose to cycle – even if they also drive.

I am one of the 83% of Brits who owns both a car and a bike, but I’m with the Dutch on this. I love my bike! Parking is free. I whizz down hills and wave to friends. I can hop off for a loaf of bread or some groceries. I get exercise that’s actually fun. And it’s cheap. 

I would love people to feel safe enough to discover the joys of cycling and the town centre plan would help with this. Cycling is such a great, green transport solution that frees up the road for people who do need to travel by car. It enriches our family’s lives enormously – viva la cycling revolution, I say.

Jen Rouse 

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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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