Archives for News - Page 29
Stink Over Toilet Closures
Concern about the continued closure of public conveniences in Hastings and St Leonards is growing. Local social media posts on the subject reflect a similar debate echoed in national papers…
Five Tests and “The Science”
The government has set out five tests that must continue to be met each time restrictions are eased. 1 Ensuring the NHS has adequate capacity;2 A ‘sustained and consistent’ fall…
Medical Centre Rises From The Ashes
The new three-storey medical centre on Bexhill Road in St Leonards, which will provide relocated accommodation for the Carisbrooke Surgery and the Silver Springs Medical Practice branch site of the…
Champagne on Ice
While the GPs, staff and patients of the Carisbrooke Surgery and Silver Springs can look forward to the completion of their new premises in Bexhill Road (read more here) in…
Retail Reopening
Council Given Fund To Maintain Social Distancing Shops selling clothes, shoes, toys, furniture, books and electronics; plus tailors, auction houses, photography studios and indoor markets will all be permitted to…
Potholes, What Holes?
On 18th May East Sussex County Council issued a press release declaring that East Sussex Highways (ESH), the agency responsible for upkeep of the county’s roads “have been pulling out…
Snakes In The Country Park
By Richard Price Two grass snakes were recently killed in Hastings Country Park, the first on 7th April, the second on 19th May. The heads of the snakes had been…
Decisions, decisions
On 18th March Hastings Borough Council, meeting in full session, agreed urgent new rules to allow its recently appointed (and wholly unelected) Managing Director, Jane Hartnell to make “emergency” and…
Covid Conundrum
Why hasn’t Hastings gone viral? As of last Wednesday 13th May, according to Public Health England (PHE), 45 people resident in the borough of Hastings had tested positive for coronavirus…
War Of Words As Channel Crossings Continue
Another cross-Channel boat containing 25 “displaced persons” was brought into shore at Pett Level on Saturday, as the easing of rough sea conditions over the past week gave a fresh…
Last Orders
By Emma Harwood At this time of year pubs, venues, cafés and restaurants should all be enjoying the boost in trade brought by warmer weather and the Easter and May…
Lockdown Delinquents
Local residents around Linley Drive, Hastings, report that gangs of children aged between 9 and 17, the majority of whom are believed to be those of Optivo tenants in the…
Working Through The Lockdown
Six local residents tell their stories BuilderSimon Cooper As a long-standing building and landscape contractor in Hastings, my business has not suffered during the lockdown – indeed I have to…
Foreshore Trust Offers Fresh Grants Despite Income “Concern”
The Foreshore Trust is offering fresh grants of up to £6,000 each to voluntary and community groups within Hastings & St. Leonards in what it calls Round 3 of its…
HIP Commentary: Fair Question, Raab-ish Response
Mr Raab’s description of the coronavirus as “significantly affecting the tourism industry” is platitudinous blather. It is obvious that for as long as the government maintains a strategy of forcibly…
International Workers’ Memorial Day 2020
Four trade unionists, one each from France and Colombia plus two Trades Council representatives from Britain, observed a minute’s silence at the Workers’ Memorial Tree in Cornwallis Gardens last Tuesday…
Hastings Manufacturers Adapt To Pandemic Needs
Interface Manufacturing, a company based at Churchfields Industrial Estate, is making healthcare equipment and supplies for use in the treatment of Covid-19 patients. It is also supplying scientific equipment and…
Don’t Get Trapped In A Lift
Among other changes being proposed in its draft Strategy Plan (see adjacent columns), East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is seeking to “manage demand” in three operational areas: releases from…
Council Deficit “Unsustainable”
Cllr Chowney Warns Of “Massive Impact” on Services Hastings Borough Council (HBC) has calculated that its additional costs of dealing with the coronavirus outbreak coupled with losses of income receipts from…
Question and Answer
Among Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament on 22nd April was the following interchange: Sally-Ann Hart, MP for Hastings and Rye: Beautiful Hastings and Rye is heavily dependent on tourism as a…
Together We Will Find A Way
By Sally-Ann Hart MP The Covid-19 pandemic is the greatest health emergency we have faced, not only as a community and as a country, but globally. No politician wants to…
RESCUE AT RISK?
Fire Brigades Union Challenges Proposed Changes Proposals for changes in the way that East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service (ESFRS) will cover risks of fire, flood and other emergencies over…
Making the Grade
On 18th March, the Secretary of State for Education announced that this summer’s GCSE, AS and A level exam series were summarily cancelled in order to combat the spread of…
Medical Distancing
Media reports have been concentrating, as they will, on the sharp end of the coronavirus pandemic: on hospitalisations, on death counts, on frontline staff supporting positive-test patients, on individual deaths.…
All In This Together
Last Friday the Government launched a mass ad campaign under the slogan “All In, All Together”. Every national and daily regional newspaper carried a wrap-around cover with the message: “Stay…
My Part In Developing Climate Strategy
By Cllr Maya Evans Being part of the team developing the HBC climate strategy has sometimes been frustrating. Many ambitious ideas could not be included through lack of funding and…
Escape from Goa
Bob and Linda Skinner live in Sedlescombe but spend the winter months regularly in Goa. Linda returned at the end of February as scheduled. Bob was due to fly back…
Calm Seas Entice Migrant Boats
The English Channel looked as flat as a child’s boating lake in the days leading up to Easter. No surprise then that the Border Force reported a series of crafts…
Foodbank Crowdfunder Appeal Nears Doubled Target
Hastings Foodbank’s crowdfunder appeal, launched on 27th March with an initial target of £10,000, has already netted over £15,000 for the foodbank itself and its partner social action projects. Community…
Climate Emergency: Ambitious Target, ‘Paused’ Programme
The last cabinet meeting of Hastings Borough Council (HBC) took place just a few hours before PM Boris Johnson pronounced the full lockdown on 23rd March. No precise explanation of…
Autism: Exercise Rules Relaxed
People with autism and learning disabilities may now go out for exercise up to three times a day. The government has changed the outdoor exercise rules after being threatened with…
Covid Elopement
By Nadine Hayward We took off from Heathrow on 7th March, more relieved than concerned that we’d been allowed to fly to Los Angeles. There were mild concerns about Covid-19,…
A Search For “Illegals”
By Charlie Crabb On the afternoon of 8th April, out on my daily walk with my partner in Hastings Country Park, we were approached by two policemen. They asked us…
Bus Funds On Diversion
New subsidies, reduced timetables: are key workers being served? In February Boris Johnson announced in Parliament that his government was launching a new package of actions for public transport including…
Rough Sleeping In Rough Times
On Thursday 26th March, every council leader in England received a letter from Luke Hall MP, the Under Secretary of State for Local Government and ;It asked their councils to house all…
Coronavirus: The Lessons For Climate Change Policy
By Maya Evans In a week when the Coronavirus crisis sent millions into isolation in their homes, and the NHS was braced for an influx of patients, Planet Earth sent…
Sweden In The Time of Corona
Sweden has so far declined to impose a social lockdown. Schools, bars, cafes and shops remain open. Social distancing is recommended, but not enforced. Alex Peck, a Brit living in Sweden,…
Is This The World’s Dullest Dystopia?
By Safiya Young Never before have I had a stronger desire to take up outdoor sports. Even two weeks ago, I would have thought nothing of spending the afternoon, indeed…
England Coast Path Plans Welcomed by SEG
In our article “Waste, Potholes and Footpaths” featured last month (HIP 147), we suggested that the pressure group SEG (Save Ecclesbourne Glen) might be less than impressed by the upbeat…
Southeastern Trains – Nationalisation By Virus
Under the Emergency Measures Agreement introduced by the Department for Transport (DfT) following the coronavirus outbreak, all rail franchisees’ revenues and cost risks have been effectively nationalised for at least the next…