Improve Hastings - what would you do?

[Richard]

There are plenty of top brand names in Priory Meadow including Marks & Spencer, Primark, (soon to arrive) Next, HMV, Boots, Rob. Dyas, Spec saver, PizzaExpress WHSmith and many more.
These have been around for a long time, apart from PizzaExpress more recently arrived.
True some others don't suss out the local business properly and can't make a decent profit.
I like the Mall at Priory Meadow, it is smallish and feels pleasant and airy with huge high glass-roofed ceilings. It would be wrong and out of character to have a huge concrete Arndale instead. Thank goodness we don't.

you said:

" There are many coastal towns which do not have fast rail or road links to a big metropolis, yet they have perfectly well-functioning economies and a decent quality of life for the inhabitants."

Maybe if they are retirement towns for the wealthy, like Eastbourne, I admit, although Hastings has more history and character with plentiful Parks and Gardens and numerous facilities for kids.
At Eastbourne the seafront is grander and more elegant, with little formal gardens and an old fashioned feel. Elderly on walking sticks are happy just to totter from seafront hotel to the prom and back.
Red Bus tours run along the sea front to Beachy Head-land which is spectacular.
Plus a functioning Pier and I agree with you that we have failed miserably there and await further notice.

[seahermit]

Primark hasn't arrived yet. Burtons and Dorothy Perkins went, Accessorize went. HMV is quite recent and replaced another record outlet (whose name I forget but admittedly it was owned by the same group).

Next went some years ago and that unit has changed hands twice since then. Specsaver not long ago replaced another chain store. Pizza Express is also relatively recent. The two units selling s/h phones and DVDs are quite recent. Etc. ...

Just putting your "facts" right.

[seahermit]

The Thorntons unit has changed hands twice and is now a sweet shop. Officers or some such name went. Poundland is not many years old. Stead and Simpson went. Some units opposite Vodafone have changed hands more than once.

Fewer than half of all units have been occupied by the same businesses ever since I came to Hastings - 17 years. I have never known a shopping centre which underwent so many shifts and refits.

[Richard]

Facts to prove a point, seahermit, it doesn't work like that.
Some shops come and go, it means little that you can apply a definite formula to.
I am making broad generalisations, if you look at the Old Town you will see change and change again. It does not mean that everything is a mess and badly run or that the council are useless at planning or approving deals.
Queens Road is improving, some people see opportunity, not big brand chains but individuals putting a lot of cash into redeveloping shops left vacant or not making a good profit because their customer market is changing, possibly down to the internet or, more likely, bigger Malls opening elsewhere, giving rise to potentially bigger profits.

Come over and have a coffee one day MJ and we can shake sticks at the universe, after all we are just an advanced breed of monkeys, who learned to talk, on a minor planet of a very average star.

[seahermit]

Your surmise is correct in that I have no personal motivations here, I am just somewhat dismayed at your sweeping generalisations which diverge away from the facts and the reality.

There will always be some change of course and the Old Town suffers its fair share. But talk to any local trader (I often do) and ask the reasons why. They all cite the same pressures - the internet doesn't help of course but add to that an unsympathetic council, bureaucracy, high business rates, inadequate protection, the shabby and tramp-ridden streets driving away visitors, drugs and petty crime. And a simple lack of wealth in this area. There used to be tens of thousands of language students coming to Hastings each year - I gather that the total number is below 20 per cent of what it was in the the early 2000's.

I have done several small-scale business things in Hastings since I came here - enjoyed myself very much and never made a loss, but it was VERY hard work and not profitable enough to continue with long-term. It is just too poor an area.

[Richard]

Hi MJ,
Most of the jobs in Hastings are concentrated in the public sector.
To expand away from that field agency money was given to creating the Priory Quarter (private offices) which has attracted Saga, the Sussex Coast College Campus up by the station (and another further afield), and for the construction of the (failed) University College building.
Retail funds itself and is in sway to the wider economy, as you say Hastings has a lot of poverty and very many down-at-heel people live in Hastings as well as huge numbers with special needs and it has long been a coastal resort for people with poor health looking to recover in a healthy environment.
Also it is known as 'benefits town' partly because of the employment issues and the large numbers of people who are unable, unfit or unwilling to work, some are not bright enough really to do anything that modern private business requires.
New town Hastings arose on the back of tourism and that is another sector which can be addressed, the current Pier is something of a failure but that will change, no doubt.
Tourism is growing and retail is connected but has not always found the right formula, poor business plans will not survive anywhere.
The Brassey Institute library has been redeveloped at some great cost whilst many towns and villages, up and down the country, are scrapping such services. Hastings council score highly in that endeavor.

Many young professionals are moving here as Hastings has cheap property and a healthy environment and many facilities for kids.
I think you are being a little pessimistic MJ, Hastings could do better but many are prepared to risk their own money in private business ventures.
Hastings has a lot of potential and wealthy London, Windsor and Brighton have many tramps and homeless sleeping on the streets.
This is lamentable to witness locally but it is not because Hastings is badly run or doesn't care.

[seahermit]

I am not pessimistic in the sense that I think the future of Hastings is not hopeful - there are many good aspects to Hastings and, if better planning decisions were made, the town could build on its strengths. The trouble is that this is not currently happening, it is depressing to see that since I came here in 2000 the town has in many ways gone down, not up.

There are people in Hastings who talk up the town and really don't like criticism or "negativity". That is all very brave and commendable but idealistic thinking is not going to change the realities - a lot of people in Hastings have difficult lives and businesses struggle to survive. Only very clear thinking and hard-headed decisions will make a difference. But the worst aspect maybe is the Council's pig-headed manner of doing their own thing and their complete indifference to the opinions of local people (the consultations are largely a PR exercise). They should be working directly WITH local people and businesses instead of from time to time coming up with crackpot planning schemes (tower hotels on Pelham beach, marinas under the cliffs at Rock-a-Nore, remember the "giant slug" building on the Stade?) - which then get abandoned in the face of a storm of protest.

[Richard]

Hastings is a traditionally left-wing-voting working class holiday town.
The council is controlled by Labour and they have little money to play with as there are not enough businesses providing revenue to fill the coffers.
A commendable attempt has been made to remedy the situation by encouraging private office developments and improving tourism and education facilities, all funded with 'grant' monies, but this 'accommodation' has failed to attract much business from outside Hastings which would have generated jobs and hence stimulated the economy.
I suggested that a faster rail link would greatly improve matters but seahermit thinks other reasons are the cause of failure.
The old adage was 'build it and they will come' but if the roads and trains are slow to navigate then what can we expect?
The Jerwood is hardly a roaring success and the proposed Marina Village is probably never going to happen. The Observer Building has stalled as the University College has not attracted the expected influx of foreign students, and the Pier is under review.
The creation of a huge Sports centre is under consideration.
So, I agree lots not working properly yet, however the infrastructure holds much potential, it is now just a matter of attracting business and promoting Hastings properly, a place with a very famous name, which remains yet a quirky little backwater for any number of reasons.

[seahermit]

Following on from all this, I could hardly help laughing to read that the council leader has backtracked on the Old Town harbour development, declared it to be "merely a proposal under consideration" or some such phrase. Completely unfeasible and unlikely to become a reality, in other words. I cannot see any building organisation taking on a project which would be so vastly expensive, controversial and attended by doubts about whether the investment would bring a proper return.

But we do need some well-thought out and practicable ideas to pull Hastings up - wish the Hastings town planners would go and look at some other towns along the coast and learn from them!

The story about the harbour development came from the Hastings Independent Press. Being careful with my words .. I think it is fair to question whether the HIP represents the majority of people living in Hastings, is truly independent in view of the number of articles attacking the poor old Tories, or is even a proper .. I would support a truly apolitical, calm, cool, judgemental voice to combat all the bullshit which emanates from the legions of local bureaucracy, but I fear the HIP does not fill the role.

[seahermit]

P.S.

Richard - I tried to send you a PM last night but this afternoon it is still sitting in the Outbox! Odd. It has happened sometimes before, so I have sent a note to Geoff about it - of course, that one may not have gone off either! Wonder if I am doing something wrong?

S/H