Residents arriving at the Hastings Household Waste Recycling Site are now being asked for their booking confirmation and proof they live in the county with identification such as a photocard, driving licence or Council Tax bill.

The aim of the booking system is to help reduce misuse of the sites by traders and out-of-county residents. ESCC claims that it will save the taxpayer £50,000 a year.

Cllr Claire Dowling, the county council’s lead member for transport and environment, says: “The new booking system is quick and easy to use, and residents will be able to book a visit on the same day or any time up to two weeks in advance.”

She goes on to explain: “The misuse of our sites costs the taxpayer, and, at a time when the council is facing increasing financial pressure, the money saved will help us protect services. As well as saving money, the new system will help us better manage queues at busy times and improve operations and safety.”

Around half the councils in England now operate a booking system including West Sussex, Kent and Hampshire. Feedback from these councils is reported to be largely positive.

There will be no change to what can be disposed of at the household waste recycling sites and no additional charges for East Sussex residents above the current charge for non-household waste: hardcore, soil, plasterboard and asbestos. Non-East Sussex residents can still book to use the sites subject to an out-of-county charge.

Unsurprisingly, local reactions to the booking system appear to be mostly unenthusiastic so far, given that, at last year’s public consultation on the booking scheme, only 9% of attendees were in favour. Cllr Dowling says: “I know there has been concern about the impact the booking system will have on incidents of fly-tipping, but neighbouring councils have reported no increase since introducing their systems.”

Some residents have complained that the new system has not been widely advertised, and one person was concerned that it involves too much planning ahead, with last-minute slots difficult to book at weekends. On the other hand, several posts report that the system is easy to use and that the Freshfields site has been less busy since bookings were introduced.

The quickest and easiest way to book is by going online, although those who need help to book can call 0345 6080194. For more information, go to eastsussex.gov.uk/rubbish-recycling/booking-system-background

Emma Benfield was getting worried. “I am writing to express my growing concern,” she wrote to Cllr Amanda Jobson, “about the speeding vehicles and increasing number of accidents on Springfield Road. As a resident, I am deeply troubled by the safety risks these issues pose to the community.”

Cllr Jobson has written to East Sussex County Council’s lead member on transport, Claire Dowling, to ask for clearer signage and, if possible, for a 20mph zone on the road. “Cars regularly collide with the traffic islands in Springfield Road,” she explains. “We’ve seen people swerving round them on the wrong side… There have been lots of collisions. Two years ago an old man was killed.”

Terry Mahindraker MBE moved to Springfield Road six years ago and has seen a crash on this road every year. “Residents want to walk safely and cross safely,” she says. “Vehicles are going too fast.”

In October 2022, Hastings Borough Council passed a resolution – proposed by Cllr Jobson – calling on ESCC to introduce a 20mph zone in residential areas of the town and other roads where speed was a particular concern. The county council ignored the request.

Since then, the move to introduce such zones has rapidly developed countrywide. In 2023, a 20mph limit was introduced across Wales in residential and built-up areas, in the face of stiff opposition. Recently the results of the first year have been announced: lower speeds have led to 678 (28%) fewer casualties on 20/30mph roads, compared with the previous year, including 10 fewer deaths. Insurance claims have dropped by 20%, and premiums for Welsh drivers have fallen.

Councils across the country are paying attention, and consultations and zone introductions have recently been announced in regions as far afield as Bournemouth and Cumbria. Cornwall Council began a programme of reducing speed limits to 20mph in urban areas in 2022.

A petition calling for the introduction of a 20mph limit in traffic hotspots went to ESCC in July 2023 with over 1,500 signatures from Hastings residents, mostly collected at school gates. Again it was summarily refused.

Under plans for local government reorganisation both Hastings Borough Council and East Sussex County Council are set to disappear. This will mean a lot of new councillors and new staff, and every likelihood that the 2022 resolution and the voices calling for speed reduction are going to be overlooked.

“It’s frustrating,” says Amanda. “All that hard work, simply ignored. But we won’t give up… Kids on Springfield Road are in danger. Parents are scared. The existing traffic calming measures simply aren’t sufficient.”

The challenge is to get legislators to think differently. In 2023, the Guardian reported on the concept called ‘motonormativity’, an idea devised by Ian Walker, professor of environmental psychology at Swansea University, that people are commonly unable to think beyond car use as it is so pervasive. He argues that people implicitly accept deaths and injuries on the roads as this is seen as essentially random, and so in a curious way almost fair.

Perhaps we should be grateful for the ubiquitous potholes, at least they slow down the traffic.

East Sussex County Council (ESCC) has announced that it will impose a Lane Rental Scheme on contractors and utility companies undertaking future work on the busiest roads in the county during peak traffic hours.

Claire Dowling, the council’s lead member for transport and environment said that the scheme will encourage shorter durations of work on the roads, help improve planning and coordination and “encourage companies to get it right first time”. It will also generate surplus money which will be made available for highway improvements “to limit disruption and congestion”.

Ms Dowling made no mention of the still onerous traffic disruption related to the Queensway Gateway junction works.

In August last year ESCC and its contractor Balfour Beatty Living Places took over the job of completing this road link, originally scheduled to be in place by November 2016, from Sea Change Sussex. They indicated then that they expected to complete it by the end of the year.

Since commencement in September, the consequence of the works has been long daily queues in both directions of the A21, and a series of disruptive deviation routes. Seven months later that’s still the case. At 10.15 am on Monday morning, as this report was being finalised, the northbound queue out of Hastings stretched from the Ridge back to the bottom of Harrow Road. The new junction appeared 90% complete, but the contractors’ machines were parked up with no workers at all on site.

In December the council explained that work had been delayed “due to significant remedial works” and a burst water main that had by then been fixed. In February they referred to “a challenging diversion of a water pipe in the A21 embankment” but claimed to be “continuing to work with our delivery partners on options to accelerate construction, including night time working”.

Asked last week for a further explanation, a council spokesperson replied that “utility assets [presumably the water pipes] had not been correctly shown on official plans. New surveys had to be carried out and some surveys redone where legal ownership prevented us from using the originals. We appreciate the disruption these works are causing and are doing everything we can to complete them as quickly as possible.”

This reference to third party legal ownership sounds like a veiled reference to Sea Change. ESCC have previously declined to use Sea Change’s design plans, even though the company indicated willingness to license them to save any additional cost and time of redesigning from scratch.

As to the cost, £2.5 million was allocated a year ago from funds offered by the then Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to Hastings Borough Council and Rother District Council for their “priority projects”. But the spokesperson for county council is now describing this sum only as a “contribution” towards the expense of the overall scheme. Whatever the balance of cost may be, it will presumably appear in due course as an item within ESCC’s own budget.

East Sussex County Council is to introduce a booking system at all 10 of the county’s household waste and recycling centres. Cllr Claire Dowling, lead member for Transport and Environment, made this decision on Monday this week at a meeting at County Hall, Lewes, after reviewing a report by Rupert Clubb, Director of Communities, Economy and Transport.

A council spokesperson said that the system is expected to be up and running some time before the end of the next financial year.

Mr Clubb’s report made quite explicit the aims of the booking scheme to resolve problems of congestion and queuing at some of the 10 recycling sites at certain times of the week and year; to improve the operation and safety of the sites;

• To save money (estimated at £50,000 per year);
• To ensure that only East Sussex residents are given access.

Operational benefits, experienced (it was claimed) by neighbouring councils that have implemented booking systems, will include

• deterrence of commercial traders;
• customers bringing their waste in bulk and visiting less often;
• managing growth of demand more efficiently.

The council sought advance feedback on the proposed scheme by putting it out for consultation over a nine-week period between mid-October and Christmas. It received almost 6,000 responses – the highest ever recorded by this council department. Of these over 90% were negative (more than 72% “extremely negative”); only 4% were in favour.

Many respondents asked whether a partial booking system could be considered e.g. at weekends or other busy times, or at certain sites only. But this was ruled out by council officers on grounds of inconsistency for operators of the sites and confusion for customers.

Lewes Liberal Democrats subsequently presented a petition opposing the scheme which attracted over 3,000 signatures.

None of this opposition impressed Mr Clubb, who recommended that the council should proceed to set up the booking system. Cllr Dowling agreed, taking into account the financial savings as well the potential benefits identified in the report.

Council cabinet members unanimously approved additional spending of £5.6 million from reserves to pay for extra patching and drainage work, and to increase the capital programme by £5.1 million, funded through borrowing. They also agreed to recommend further £5 million expenditure to “to help with early improvements to make the road network more resilient”, subject to approval at a full Council meeting later this month.

Presenting a report on 27 June, Cllr Claire Dowling, ESCC’s lead member for transport and environment, said: “Over recent winters, … the weather has taken its toll on roads in East Sussex and across the country.  I very much welcome this investment and believe residents will as well.” She claimed that the increase in funding would “help move 40 more miles of roads into good condition” and significantly reduce the proportion in East Sussex needing repair.

A subsequent press release issued by ESCC last week also referred to the extra investment that is needed “as more extreme weather is causing roads across England to deteriorate faster”.

Road users of Hastings and St Leonards may wonder, however, whether their borough suffers disproportionately from climate change, or whether there are other factors at work.

“You notice the moment you get to the town border,” observes a resident, “nowhere else is as bad.”

Roads across the town present specific challenges, many being steep and relatively narrow. When heavy vehicles – such as buses – brake on descents, they cause damage. Anyone who has reported potholes will know the key determinant of a speedy repair is the depth of the hole; taking no account of ruts, undulations and loose tarmac covering a wide area, some examples remaining unfixed for at least five years.

Potholes are customarily filled on an individual basis, with others just a few metres away ignored by repair crews. When a section of road is resurfaced, often only a minimal area is treated. On Pevensey Road, a busy bus route, only 50 metres of a 100-metre section, in demonstrably poor condition and dangerous to cyclists, was recently repaired. Given the cost of removing parked cars and transporting men, machines and materials to the site, this seems a false economy – as is the practice of ‘cold filling’, tamping asphalt into holes, rather than ‘hot filling’, using heated tar to provide a longer-lasting repair.

HIP asked ESCC for a meeting with a highway engineer to raise these issues, and also submitted written questions. They have not responded.  

Have you had a problem, fallen over, suffered a damaged tyre or suspension, or had an accident because of local roads and/or pavements in poor repair? If so, please email HIP with a heading of ‘Roads’ at news@hastingindependentpress.co.uk

East Sussex Highways have announced that the link road connecting Hastings with Bexhill across the Combe Valley will be wholly closed for four days from today (Friday) for repair works to carriageways in both directions. 

The road, which was built as a brand new route at a cost of around £120 million and opened less than eight years ago, is suffering from subsidence.

East Sussex County Council last week released details of its proposals for cheaper bus fares and more frequent services across the county after receiving £41.4m funding from central government.

The national scheme introduced earlier this year to limit single fares to £2 has been extended to the end of June 2023. In the meantime, the council’s Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) will roll into action from next Friday 1 April. It includes:

• A new £5 all day ticket which can be used on most bus operators across East Sussex;
• A reduction from £17.50 to £15 for the weekly Freedom Pass for under 19s;
• An extension of the current offers of a single fare for under 19s after 6pm on school days and any time on non-school days;
•  Up to four under 19s being able to travel for free with one adult fare paying or concessionary pass passenger.

Under a further programme to be launched “in the coming months”, the council plans a new bookable on-demand transport service which will operate primarily in more rural areas. The service will be able to be booked via an app or by phone.

Cllr Claire Dowling, lead member for transport and environment, said: “Our plan to offer the highest quality bus service possible to our residents has been given a fantastic boost thanks to the Government funding we have secured.

“Our officers are working hard to make the proposals set out in our BSIP a reality and create a service that gives comprehensive choice, reduces congestion and makes a positive contribution to improving air quality and decarbonisation.

An East Sussex County Council (ESCC) spokesperson said last week that alternative options have been “carefully considered” following the decision of Hastings Borough councillors in December to reject the installation of a cycleway through Alexandra Park.  “Having worked on these proposals over a ten-year period, and with no guarantee that an alternative would be feasible, we have decided that we are unable to provide any further resource or funding to develop new proposals on this route at this time,” the spokesperson said.

ESCC is due to enter discussions with South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) to determine how and where remaining externally secured capital funding from the Local Growth Fund programme may be spent. This entails reviewing all schemes within the Hastings and Bexhill Movement and Access package, which include cycle infrastructure proposals in Hastings, to ensure they continue to offer the best value for money and that the funding can be spent by March 2025  – if not, it may presumably, be withdrawn.  “Once agreement has been reached with SELEP, we plan to seek approval from the Lead Member for Transport and Environment [CLLR Claire Dowling] this summer,” the spokesperson said.

For more progressive news on the Hastings Greenway cycleway and pedestrian route, see page 9. 

by SEAN JORDAN, local LGBT+ activist. 

On the evening of Wednesday 15 February, Hastings residents gathered outside Goat Ledge for a vigil to mourn the passing of Brianna Ghey, the 16 year old girl whose murder in Cheshire by two teenagers has filled the airwaves. The vigil was organised by Hastings Pride, with Natasha Scott speaking; she mentioned the hatred that Brianna and the trans community have received, but also the solace of the people turning out to show their support. Brianna Ghey was trans, and experienced bullying for this fact during her short life. To her friends she was simply ‘Bri’. This is a crime that has surely sparked anger, but on this winter evening there was only sadness by candlelight and quiet reflection on so much wasted potential. 

Help East Sussex libraries find lost books

Almost 5,000 books a year are not returned to East Sussex libraries. County residents are being asked to check their bookshelves, behind the sofa and under the bed to see if they have any overdue titles. During a seven-week amnesty, which runs until March 31, fines will be waived by the library service for any books returned.

Readers of East Sussex seem to like being kept on the edge of their seats, with the most overdue adult fiction author being bestselling thriller and suspense writer James Patterson.

Classic novels such as Moby-Dick, or The Whale, by Herman Melville and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, along with War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, are amongst the well-known fiction titles that have been out on loan the longest.

Among the books for younger readers that have not been returned are those by fairy story author Daisy Meadows, and books by renowned children’s authors Julia Donaldson and Roald Dahl.

Cllr Claire Dowling, lead member for transport and environment at East Sussex County Council, says: “Our libraries contain many thousands of books which are available for library members to borrow for free. Unfortunately, every year many titles fail to make it back to us, and if books aren’t returned other people miss out.”

Books can be returned to any East Sussex library during opening hours. Alternatively, most libraries have drop boxes for out of hours returns. Some people may not have finished with the books they have out on loan, and in those cases the library service is asking members to renew them as soon as possible.

More information about how to renew a library book is available under the ‘Renew your books’ section at www.eastsussex.gov.uk/libraries

Hastings Borough Council launches electric vehicle fleet

Hastings Borough Council has recently introduced five Vauxhall Vivaro e-vans, which will be used by several departments across the council. These include the Active Hastings, Foreshore, Pest Control, Warden, and Building Cleaning teams. Two Vauxhall Corsa e-cars are also due for imminent delivery and will be utilised by the Warden service.

Cllr Ali Roark, lead for Environment at Hastings Borough Council, says: “Climate change threatens our planet, with rising sea levels, rapid biodiversity and ecosystem loss and drastic changes in weather which threatens food production and habitats. We know becoming carbon neutral by 2030, a whole 20 years before the government’s target, is going to be extremely challenging but we are committed to making changes that will help to meet this ambition.

“Tackling climate change is at the forefront of everything the council does: including the design of council homes, developing the new Local Plan, the installation of solar panels at council offices, and the introduction of electric vehicles.

“Carbon neutrality is not something we can achieve alone, and we continue to work with local businesses and other stakeholders on this. As a resident it’s important to play your role too. No matter how small a change it is, it can all make a difference. This may be switching off all your appliances when they aren’t in use or taking the bus or walking instead of driving. Activism has a part to play too as we look to change how we do things as a society – this will all make a difference for future generations.”

The ECP also promises some cash investment into the route through the Country Park.  There is £18,515 allocated for signs, steps and handrails, plus £4,813 for maintenance.

The footpaths in Ecclesbourne Glen were closed in 2013/14 following the landslip originating in the Rocklands caravan park.  The ECP will follow the route of Footpath 379a (reopened in November 2019 by the county council) which runs under Rocklands in Ecclesbourne Glen rather than routed, under the previous diversion, away from the glen along Rocklands Lane.

SEG are disappointed, however, that Footpath 417 (the Saxon Way) that follows the coast remains closed until May and will not be used for the ECP.  Mr Hurrell points out that this route better fits with Natural England’s own Coastal Access Scheme which refers to “ the desirability of it adhering to the periphery of the coast and providing views of the sea along with the safety and convenience of those using the route”. SEG were intending to make representations both to the county council and to the Secretary of State to get it reopened, though clearly that won’t happen in the current lockdown.

While the county council is the agency responsible for footpaths, SEG holds Hastings Borough Council (HBC) primarily responsible, as planning and enforcement authority, for failing to take action against Rocklands to resolve the underlying causes of the landslip, which they continue to believe resulted from unauthorised developments within the caravan site. HBC have declined, says Mr Hurrell, to carry out further geotechnical tests without a financial contribution from Rocklands, to compel Rocklands to provide positive drainage in accordance with their site licence, or to provide the county council with the relevant information on the landslip showing that manmade developments have been a causal factor. Armed with such information, he argues, the county council could be taking their own remedial action to deal with drainage, run offs and loading issues so as to get footpaths re-opened.

SEG have, meanwhile, also lodged an objection to new bye-laws proposed by HBC that, according to Mr Hurrell, seek to restrict access to 40% of the Country Park and to remove the general right to roam in 35% of the area within the coastal margin of the ECP.