Just days after the damaging bust-up between Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, the newly formed ‘Your Party’ hosted a public meeting at St John’s Hall on Brittany Road last Tuesday (30 September). The event was attended by approximately 150 people and featured a zoom call with Andrew Feinstein, the former African National Congress MP and associate of Nelson Mandela, who challenged Keir Starmer in the 2024 general election in his Holborn and St Pancras constituency.

The public meeting was organised by a coalition of local left-wing groups, including the Hastings IndependentsGroup, the Hastings People’s Party, the Hastings branch of the Socialist Workers Party, and the Hastings & District Trades Union Council. Their aim was to raise the profile of the new party ahead of a planned visit to Hastings by its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, on 18 October.

Your Party has had a troubled launch. The initial joint-leader, Zarah Sultana, sent out a formal membership invitation by email to those who had expressed interest in the new party in September. This resulted in more than 22,000 people signing up. If all had paid the £55 annual membership, the new party could have raised over £1 million.

However, within hours Jeremy Corbyn disavowed the “unauthorised email”, and urged supporters to cancel payments. There followed a series of angry exchanges between the two, with Sultana alleging the party was becoming a “sexist boys’ club” and there were threats of legal action.

After days of dispute, mediation attempts paved the way for a re-launch of the party and a second membership drive with those who joined under Zarah Sultana given an assurance that their “data and membership is secure and will be migrated across”.

When Your Party was subsequently registered with the Electoral Commission, Mr Corbyn was listed as sole leader, and the new party declared assets of over £855,000.

In his video address, Mr Feinstein outlined the aims of the new party and its vision for a “grassroots-driven” political system. This movement is “not about Jeremy [Corbyn], but about each and every one of us,” he said.

Labour was the main focus of his attack. He called Keir Starmer’s Labour Conference speech delivered in Liverpool earlier that day “the longest resignation statement ever made”. He said the Labour Leader was as culpable as Benjamin Netanyahu for what was happening in Gaza and said he would like to see him in the Hague to be prosecuted.

Local councillors Paul Barnett, Andy Batsford, John Cannan, Nigel Sinden, Mike Turner and Simon Willis, who resigned from the Labour Party in December 2023 to form the Hastings Independent Group, announced that they would all join Your Party. Cllr Barnett told the meeting that they fully supported Your Party’s mission to build a fairer, more democratic and more inclusive politics across the UK.

Whilst the meeting was free to attend, people were encouraged to make a donation to the new political party. Those who had already sent in contributions before Your Party was formally launched were assured that their money would be switched over to the new party shortly.

The newly formed Hastings Independents Party celebrated the launch of its breakaway political venture with 40-50 people crammed into Mike’s Bar in Norman Road, St Leonards last Friday (26 January). 

The new political grouping consists of eight erstwhile Labour councillors who resigned the party whip in December. They are: the former Council Leader, Paul Barnett, his Deputy Leader, Maya Evans, and Cllrs Andy Batsford, Simon Willis, Ali Roark, John Cannan, Nigel Sinden and Mike Turner. They have applied to the Electoral Commission to list the Hastings Independents Party as a political party on the national register. 

Cllr Sinden, who represents the Silverhill ward, expressed his sadness at leaving Labour. He said he had become “deeply frustrated” at the way the national party had tried to control the local party in Hastings in recent years. “My values have not changed, he said, “it is the Labour Party that has changed”, adding, “it will be much easier for me to stand up for my residents in Silverhill and across Hastings as an independent voice within the Hastings Independents group.” 

Cllr Batsford told the gathering that, since the formation of the new group in December, he and his colleagues had been “overwhelmed” by positive messages of support from people across Hastings who were “desperate for a new type of politics” and one “not constrained by out-of-date national party rules”. He said he wanted to “harness the hardworking, creative, and independent nature of Hastings and St Leonards to drive this community forward in a way that will capture everyone and provide a sense of community, pride and energy”.

Cllr Evans spoke passionately about the need to build a progressive alliance to deliver social justice for all the people of the town. She said the agreement with the Green Party was “the first step towards working in a new way that is not constrained by national party rules and shows a strong commitment to opening up the council so that the brightest and best from Hastings can contribute to this amazing town”. 

She said that the new party will hold a series of meetings and events over the next month “not only to celebrate our town, but also to provide an opportunity for those with a passion for this town to help shape the strategies and policies we will bring to residents’ doorsteps during the local election”. 

It is unclear at this stage how many seats the new party will contest in May’s elections. Cllr Evans is the only one of the group up for re-election, whilst Cllr Roark has already announced that she will be stepping down as a councillor when her term ends in April. 

A recent issue of Private Eye described a leaked ‘peer review’ of the  finances of Hastings Borough Council prepared by the Local Government Association as revealing it to be “on the brink of bankruptcy”. Cash reserves, it suggested, were being depleted unsustainably in order to maintain a balanced budget. 

However, council leader Paul Barnett, who has taken over the financial portfolio within his cabinet, has issued what amounts to a denial of this charge. He says he accepts that the review was designed to challenge and support the council to improve its financial management and welcomed the LGA team to Hastings – “[we] look forward to the final report”. However, he also maintains that what has been leaked contained factual errors to which council officers are “suggesting corrections”.

He admitted at a cabinet meeting on 3 July that “my job is to be Scrooge now…We haven’t got enough money to do all the things we want to do”. But he also pointed out that a recent audit has shown the council ending the last financial year with cash reserves around £1.5m higher than had been anticipated, following increased investment returns and an underspend in a number of departments, mainly due to departing staff not being replaced.

The overriding problem is the cost of providing temporary housing,  – an overspend of £2.8m last year. Cllr Barnett told his cabinet colleagues that the housing crisis, which was national rather than unique to Hastings, is “not going away any time soon”, and that “getting rid of this government is not going to be a salvation – the structural changes which need to be made to the housing market will take several years to achieve…We’ve got to be incredibly creative in finding ways of reducing our costs”.

Cllr Simon Willis, lead member for housing after the recent cabinet reshuffle, added that council officers in his housing ‘task force’ were “taking a great many measures to make sure we make progress in reducing this most important part of the financial challenge”. Besides starting an acquisitions programme, they were finding “cheaper options for temporary accommodation”, though he did not spell out what these are. 

Other cabinet positions remain unaltered: Cllr Andy Batsford leading on health and culture; Cllr Ali Roark on environment; Cllr Judy Rogers on planning and governance, community safety and disability access; and Cllr John Cannan as chair of the charity committee.

No explanation has been given for the changes save for a statement by Cllr Barnett that they “will refresh the cabinet for the challenging year ahead”.

Prime challenge is clearly in balancing the council’s revenue budget against mounting wage inflation and energy costs, and an ever-rising tide of expenditure on housing the homeless, as the numbers in need increase and rent levels likewise. A Financial Monitoring Outlook (FMO) Report for 2022/23, which the cabinet are due to consider at their meeting on Monday 3 July, contains a calculation that the overspend on homelessness last year was £2.385m, and that £1.290 of this had to be financed from reserves.

The only bright note in the accompanying Treasury Management Outlook Report, which will also be presented to cabinet at the meeting, is that rising interest rates more than doubled the projected returns received on council investments during the year (over £1.14m, exceeding the budget target by £638,000).

Given the financial squeeze, Cllr Evans’ task within the regeneration portfolio seems almost entirely dependent upon the council’s success in accessing external funds. 

The Town Deal projects which should be making major progress in the current year are largely beyond HBC’s remit, but a council spokesperson has confirmed that plans for a new health and leisure centre at Summerfield will form the basis of a proposal to be submitted in the next round of Levelling Up funding promised by DLUHC (the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities).

In the meantime: improvements to community facilities at Broomgrove are proceeding on the basis of funds provided by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund; discussions with Homes England are said to be “still on-going” with regard to support for “the wider regeneration interests in the town centre, including Station Plaza; while “technical and survey work is on-going by the developer” at West Marina.

Neither Cllr Evans nor anyone else at the council has responded to questions concerning its own development of hotel premises to be operated by Premier Inn on the former car park site off Cornwallis Street. Planning approval was given for the building in February 2022, and expenditure on the project during the 2022/23 financial year is noted in the TMO Report as £238,000, which doesn’t include a loss of £70,000 (and continuing) as a result of the car park closure. However, no building work seems to have been undertaken yet, save for a symbolic patchwork of surface drilling. 

Hastings Borough Council (HBC) agreed to raise the local council tax by the maximum amount allowed without holding a local referendum at a fiery meeting of the full council at Muriel Matters House last Wednesday (15 February). The proposed 2.99% increase in council tax was part of a series of controversial measures aimed at securing the Council’s 2023-24 annual budget.

The Council is currently run by a minority Labour administration after last year’s post-election cooperation alliance with the Greens was ended in the autumn. The vote on the annual budget was, therefore, the first major test of the Labour group’s authority; and Council Leader Paul Barnett will be pleased with the outcome despite having to take “some very difficult funding decisions”.

The budget proposed savings of more than £1.4 million with a further £2.5 million drawn down from council reserves.

Capital spending

A key plank of Labour’s budget is its capital expenditure plans. The spiralling costs of providing temporary accommodation for homeless households in recent years has seen the council adopt a Housing Acquisition Programme which will see it acquire up to 50 properties to provide temporary housing for local residents who need somewhere safe and stable to live. The net cost of providing temporary accommodation just two years ago was £731,706; this figure is set to increase to £3,892,758 in 2023-24. Officers have advised that such increases are unsustainable and, if left unchecked, threatened HBC’s financial stability. 

The acquisition programme, which was passed by the Council the previous week, will see a net spend of £11.866m over the coming years of which £5.933m is expected to be spent in 2023-24. The redevelopment of the Cornwallis Street car park for a hotel will cost the council an additional £8.4 million over the next year. Labour is confident, however, that the new 84-bedroom hotel, which will be let to Premier Inn, will help regenerate the town centre, as well as providing much needed overnight accommodation, and secure new jobs in the area.

Simon Willis, the Cabinet Member for Finance and Equalities, said that other savings would be made following the Council’s Review and Reduce Programme, which would see some voluntary staff redundancies and the deletion of vacant posts from the council’s budgets. Council support for the Hastings Contemporary art gallery and the Hastings Museum will also be cut and there will be additional savings from cuts to the maintenance of decorative lights and from ending support for the annual town crier’s competition. 

The Hastings Museum has recently secured funding of £450,000 over the next three years from Arts Council England’s National Portfolio.

The spending plans will also see substantial cuts to the tourism marketing budget. This will include a saving of up to £15,000 from closing the tourist information centre at Sussex Coast College and £50,000 from withdrawing from the 1066 Country tourism campaign.

Greens put climate first

In its original budget plans, Labour had also set out a proposed £5,000 cut to the Community Safety budget, but this was removed following talks with the Green Party. Claire Carr, the party’s lead on the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, was critical of the proposal, arguing that it was a “false economy”. She said that, with “a 7% rise in crime over the last year and sexual offences at their highest rate ever, now is not the time to be cutting this area of the budget.”

Julia Hilton, the leader of the Greens, said her party had tabled 21 “radical and imaginative” amendments to tackle the budget crisis and claimed that all had been accepted by the Labour administration. She was particularly pleased at those that “put climate change front and centre”. However, her party would not vote to approve the budget as “we want to be clear that Greens are not willing to share responsibility for the cuts it would deliver, which come after a decade of Labour administrations failing to make sufficiently radical and imaginative decisions to tackle the crisis caused by years of cuts to council funding by central government”.

The Conservatives voted against the budget. Group leader Andy Patmore said the proposals were “not radical enough”. He warned that there was now a very real danger that the council may not be able to balance its budget and would be issued with a Section 114 Notice by the Government to avoid becoming bankrupt. (Under this section of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, the council would find itself disentitled to incur any new expenditure except for safeguarding of vulnerable people and provision of statutory services).

Cllr Patmore was scathing of the plans to cut the tourism marketing budget, arguing that these would harm the council’s reputation and threaten the town’s tourism income. He also dismissed Labour’s hotel-building project as unaffordable.

However, Labour councillors cheered Maya Evans, the Deputy Leader of the Council and Chair of the Housing and Community Development Committee, when she launched a blistering attack on the Conservative Government’s record of cuts to local government funding over the last 13 years. She said government ministers were directly to blame for the budget crisis in Hastings and in local authorities across the country.

Since 2013, HBC’s government grant had been cut from £15 million to £1.5 million; this year alone, the cut was 10%. In stark contrast, the government had spent around £15 billion on unused or unusable PPE since 2020.

The council’s spending plans were approved by 13 Labour votes in favour with 10 Conservatives against. The five Green councillors abstained. As a result, local council taxpayers will see the HBC element of their bills increase by £8.42 next year on an average band D property.

On the other hand East Sussex County Council has also agreed a combined 4.99% rise in its council tax element plus adult social care precept for next year (see adjacent column), East Sussex Fire Authority has voted for a 5% increase, and the Sussex Police and Crime Panel has agreed a 7% increase. Composite council tax bills on an average band D property will thus rise altogether by over £60 for the year.

​Corporate plan:​ ​greens abstain

​Councillors had begun their​ ​evening with a discussion on​ ​proposals to update HBC’s​ ​Corporate Plan. Paul Barnett​ ​said the plan had identified​ ​two key priorities for the​ ​Council over the coming year.​ ​These were tackling the housing crisis and addressing the​ ​climate emergency. He said​ ​his group had accepted a number of amendments to the​ ​original plan in a spirit of​ ​cooperation with other parties. These included the creation of a levy on car parking​ ​charges to fund active travel​ ​schemes and requiring developers to​ ​carry whole life-cycle​ ​carbon assessments on their​ ​buildings.​ ​

The new Corporate Plan​ ​was adopted by the council​ ​with 14 Labour votes in favour, 10​ ​Conservatives against​ ​and the five Greens all abstaining.

County council tax hike

​East Sussex County Council, which has a built-in Conservative majority, has approved its 2023/24 budget, which includes payment for road upkeep and support for vulnerable adults and children. It will not entail any new spending cuts. However, what it refers to as “a significant increase in service demand”, as well as rising costs, will mean a hike in tax bills by 2.99% plus a 2% increase for adult social care.

The full Council also approved a capital programme which includes investment in road improvements, school places and SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disability) provision, as well as further supporting the council’s commitment to reduce its carbon footprint from its operations.

Cllr Nick Bennett, deputy leader and lead member for resources and climate change, said: “We know that some residents are finding it difficult to make ends meet and asking people to pay more is never a decision we take lightly, but it is more important than ever that the services the public are increasingly relying upon are safeguarded.”