WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?
Letter
Zone of Contention
Dear HIP
I refer to the Spotlight article in HIP 247 – Trinity Triangle Heritage Showcase previewing the celebration at the Observer Building (OB) which brought to an apparent close the Trinity Triangle High Street Heritage Action Zone (TTHSHAZ) programme. I have to ask: where has the £1.9 million allocated to the zone gone?
At least £700,000 was immediately sidelined for 12 Claremont and the OB. Neither are listed buildings, nor are they truly community-owned as the public are continually being told: they are both part of Hastings Commons (HC), a multi-faceted labyrinth of seemingly ever-changing organisations. So around 37% of the total funding was lost from potentially benefitting other buildings and the wider area.
Walking around the TTHSHAZ last week, one can see no visual uplift to many of the degraded buildings within it. There has been little or no preservation work to maintain and ideally enhance the character of the area. No repairs, redecoration, enhanced shop signage or reinstatement of timber windows.
The zone has three listed buildings:
Trinity Church is Grade II * listed – of particular significance. The window facing the street and public realm remains boarded up, as it has been for many years.
The Grade II-listed His Place Church is crying out for funds for repairs as the building exhibits escalating signs of decay and disrepair.
The Grade II-listed 52-52B Robertson Street and 7 Cambridge Road ( all one building) is currently dominated at street level by garish and inappropriate shop signage, materials and tiling.
All three should have been assessed and considered for grants from the £1.9m fund and taken some priority over the non-listed OB and 12 Claremont.
This failure extends to numerous other buildings in the zone, all of which could and should have received funding for basic external repairs, maintenance and redecoration.
Asking a few traders in 2021 and again last week if they knew of the funds potentially available, they said they did not. Some vague whispers of the project had apparently circulated, but the overriding message was that it was not communicated well, if at all, by HC or its predecessor Heart Of Hastings (HOH), who apparently were overseeing allocation of grants.
HC/HOH staff were never or rarely available, or did not respond, or had left when enquiries about the funds were made. All those asked said they gave up trying to access any funding. Many said they felt it unfair that all the primary focus was on the OB and 12 Claremont, and that funds were sidelined or ring-fenced for those buildings, when they were already part of an organisation that has benefited from up to £28 million in various grants and other funding streams. (This is before the recent £8.6 million allocated by the Youth Investment Fund).
Where the rest of the money has gone is difficult to fathom. A slideshow at the OB event last month illustrated the removal of a birdnest or two, the filling of some external cracks and removal of moss and other biological growth from some buildings. These did not create a great deal of excitement or seem much to show for the allocated funding.
In short, the TTHSHAZ could have received a significant visual uplift, providing definition, enhancement and a clear identity to this creative and interesting quarter of the Town Centre Conservation Area. Already populated by entirely independent traders, the zone would have then attracted further traders and tenants in line with the stated objectives of the initiative: heritage-led regeneration. Instead we are left with a tired and, in places, deteriorating street scene and public realm.
Alex Moojen
Letter
Council Meeting Abandonment
Dear HIP
The peaceful intervention by myself and others at the 20 March meeting of Hastings Borough Council was a clear defence of local democracy.
Local residents had spent over five months trying to ensure a Council debate on a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
However, these efforts had been repeatedly thwarted by the unelected Monitoring Officer and the (Labour) Mayor on manifestly bogus grounds.
The theme of the 2016 Holocaust Memorial Day – which was actively supported by the Council – was ‘Don’t stand by’.
Yet since 7 October, over 30,000 Palestinian civilians – the majority of them women and children – have been killed, and the International Court of Justice has ruled that it is plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide.
Aberdeen, Bolton, Bradford, Burnley, Calderdale, Exeter, Islington, Liverpool, Midlothian, Oxford, Preston, Sheffield, the Shetland Islands and North Somerset councils have all passed ceasefire resolutions.
It’s high time that local councillors were finally given the opportunity to decide whether or not Hastings should join them.
Gabriel Carlyle
Letter
Gaza – the Hastings Connection
Dear HIP
Could I, through your paper, send a sincere thank you to those citizens who intervened in the Full Council meeting on 20 March? I am concerned that the loudest voices in the public conversation are going on about ‘rudeness’ and ‘rule-breaking’ whilst those who look at the evidence see a very polite intervention. This was, I believe, at least the third time the council has wriggled out of having a frank conversation about matters relating to Gaza. Could those who think it’s inappropriate to discuss it please compare it to the council’s response to similar (but in fact, less deadly) situations in Ukraine and Syria?
There is absolutely no question that this does affect Hastings. Polls suggest that at least three-quarters of the population are distressed by the carnage in Gaza, no matter what they might think about Israel, and are desperate to find out what we can do about the plight, particularly of children, in Palestine. Just to give one local example, there are two factories in Hastings producing weapons parts for Israel, thus leading local people to contribute to a trade that the government’s own legal advisors have described as a war crime.
To those who claim activism is ‘futile’, ‘aggressive’ or ‘counter-productive’, I have two replies.
The first is that violent rebellions and hooliganism do not begin with one person saying ‘I’m sorry to interrupt but…’, and calmly asking a question, backed up by half a dozen others quietly holding up messages on A4 paper.
The second is that it’s only because of those citizens who intervened, and HIP’s excellent write-up of their action, that most of the town know our council is refusing to address the situation.
We, the people of Hastings, can now resolve it ourselves. That was the last (attempt at a) council meeting before the May elections. They will all be out canvassing – phoning or messaging, if not going door to door. I suggest we meet all such approaches with questions such as “What are you doing about the situation in Gaza?” or ‘How do you feel about our town being complicit in war crimes?’ and then quite simply not voting for anyone who intends to excuse, or close their eyes to, blatant mass murder.
Kay Green
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