Continuing the fight 950 years on

And of course, this year, there has been even more to do in town than usual, with the re-opened pier bringing visitors to the attractions and events taking place there, and new businesses opening up along the promenade, from pop-up catering venues to the new kayak hire facility along Bottle Alley.

All of this means Hastings is getting more and more attention in the national press, and nowadays, for the right reasons. Not so many years ago, it was pictures of derelict hotels and empty buildings that attracted news photographers. Now, it’s the refurbished seafront, the pier, the boutique hotels, the restaurants, the galleries, along with all the other tempting and photogenic gems that illustrate the summer crop of articles on what a wonderful place Hastings is to visit, and to live in.

All of this is good for the local economy, in that it promotes the town to new tourists and visitors, especially those staying overnight, increasing visitor numbers and the amount they spend here. But there’s more to it than that. Hastings is still a poor town, with relatively high levels of deprivation, poor health, and below average educational attainment, mostly concentrated in the larger social housing estates. By making the town more attractive, and by changing its image nationally, we can make it more attractive to employers to relocate their businesses here. While tourism remains our biggest industry, jobs are often seasonal and low-paid. We need new employers, particularly in specialist manufacturing, who can offer good quality, higher paid jobs, especially the kind of jobs that will be the start of a career for young people living in these more deprived areas.

But we need to keep this programme on track - cuts to public sector funding have made it much harder to keep up the regeneration momentum. Along with all other seaside resorts, we’ve seen a big increase in rough sleeping and street drinking. The reasons for this increase are not straightforward, but benefits caps and sanctions have led to more vulnerable people simply not being able to find housing they can afford. While we can work with other support services to try to help people back into housing, it becomes a vicious circle, with more people becoming homeless because of benefit cuts, and less money available to deal with the resulting problems. This becomes an added challenge, on top of trying to find the money to keep up our programmes to improve the physical appearance and quality of the town.

So while we’ve come a long way in regenerating Hastings, we’re not there yet. Hastings’ reputation as a creative and cultural centre of excellence, a must-visit resort, and a wonderful place to live and work, is growing all the time. We must make sure that continues.