Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

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Derek Jempson
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Re: Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

Postby Derek Jempson » Sun Apr 10, 2016 6:13 am

Yes, I have to agree Richard. I walked through Bottle Alley a few days ago and noted the poor finish on the repair work - it looks like the work of an apprentice plasterer! The old light fittings now look really awful - rusted and falling away in places. Some of the bottle panels are in a poor state and will soon need renovation. Most likely they'll be rendered over by the same apprentice plasterer!

Mick.
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Re: Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

Postby Mick. » Sun Apr 10, 2016 1:31 pm

Richard wrote:Well, it is now early April 2016 and, apart from a bit of patching and painting white, I see little in Bottle Alley, apart from some of the bottle-glass panels looking a bit cleaner.
No new lighting, just the dire-looking old stuff with corroded metal surrounds, and yet here we are approaching the Pier re-launch in the middle of this month.
I was hoping for better by now, but perhaps plans are afoot to rip out the old lighting and install some LED strips, or is that too expensive?
The whitewash and patching can't have cost £160 000, surely?
It wasn't even done to a high standard, by any measure.


Sounds very disapointing, especially as the Pier will soon be opening.

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Richard
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Re: Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

Postby Richard » Sun Apr 10, 2016 9:07 pm

It now appears that the council (who own Bottle Alley) secured a £50,000 grant towards renovating the structure.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-35189071

The council released the following:

“We anticipate works will start on 18 January and this will include concrete repairs, installation of new lighting, cleaning the bottle panels and redecorating.”
– Cllr Dawn Poole, the council’s lead member for regeneration
Last updated Tue 22 Dec 2015.

We also got a release as follows:

Plans for repairs worth £160,000 to an historic promenade in Hastings - known as Bottle Alley - have been approved.
Hastings Borough Council's cabinet agreed to fund a new lighting scheme and surface concrete repairs.
The funding will come from its 2015-16 capital spending programme.

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Richard
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Re: Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

Postby Richard » Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:29 pm

Today I noticed an electrician installing new cabling and LED lights at frequent intervals along a stretch of Bottle Alley.
He told me that the council would have the ability to control the lighting to produce colour changes according to special events, i.e. St Valentine's Day.
They can strobe or flash or pulse, etcetera.

He also confirmed that, as an electrical force decreases, according to the length travelled along a cable, there will be numerous input stations to maintain the voltage.
Schoolboy stuff to some, I am sure, but not a lot of people know that!!
:)

Does anyone know the metric length of Bottle Alley?

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seahermit
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Re: Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

Postby seahermit » Wed Oct 04, 2017 12:36 pm

The expenditure of £50,000 on Bottle Alley will of course greatly change the lives of people living in Hastings. Better and more colourful lighting and changing strobe lights will make things much nicer for the hoodies on skateboards who hang out there after dark, as well as the tramps who relieve their feelings in quiet corners ..

Most more normal souls prefer to enjoy the views and the open air up on the prom. Spoilt a bit though by the shoddy food kiosks installed by the council - the small round structure halfway between St Leonards and Hastings, also the ugly wooden one (why up on an unnecessary plinth?) almost opposite the Palace building.

Neither has any shelter for customers, so useless in spring and autumn, and they both sell very basic snacks, some junk food, Walls ice cream (for people with no taste!), etc. Would be really nice to have a decent little cafe serving quality hot food - why on earth was the prom-level structure above the new underground skateboard place not utilised? A lot of people like walking along the prom even in winter if the weather's fine. A cosy "pit stop" along there would work well.

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Richard
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Re: Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

Postby Richard » Wed Oct 04, 2017 3:10 pm

Well, the restoration was supposed to start in December 2015, so it is long overdue, for better or for worse!
The £50,000 was deemed insufficient and cited as the reason for the delays.
I did not like the rainbow painted pillars of Bottle Alley at first but they are at least eye-catching.
When you think about it, the Alley was an eyesore and a backwater, hopefully it will be transformed as Hastings is brought slowly out of its struggling malaise of failed projects and lost opportunities.
A Marina at St Leonards old Bathing Pool would be a much better idea than the proposed cliff-front idea beyond the Old Town and I am sure the buried tanks and poor drainage issues and culverts could be sorted by common-sense planning and designs.

I believe the iron pipe at pelham beach will be tackled soon...

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ColinL
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Re: Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

Postby ColinL » Fri Oct 06, 2017 3:51 pm

Seaside redevelopment projects are always difficult to bring to fruition. Up here on the north east coast there are plans to recreate the old lido.

For those of you who like 'old and new' images you might like the attached link

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/in-your- ... t-11284433

The rust and the rocks remain as they were when the photos were taken some 6 years ago.

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Geoff
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Re: Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

Postby Geoff » Fri Oct 06, 2017 5:13 pm

Interesting pics Colin, thank you.

The word Lido always reminds me of Margate.
https://heritagecalling.files.wordpress ... 2852-1.jpg

The one at Saltdean re-opened this summer, so there's always hope that these old treasures will be born again.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017 ... s-swimming

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Richard
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Re: Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

Postby Richard » Sun Oct 29, 2017 10:14 pm

The LED lighting is now installed along the whole stretch of the 'Bottle Alley' underpass, although the plastic screen covers looks rather flimsy.
Regarding criticisms, it looks as if the council are operating on a shoe-string budget and have to rely on charity grants and hand-outs, as there are no big businesses here that will meet the costs of bigger and better improvements.
The repairs to the ceiling of 'Bottle Alley' is 'high-maintenance', in need of continual repair and even the recent concrete-joint repairs are failing, with spalling of materials and flaking of the paint owing to some cheap or inapropriate materials applied.
Some wonder if it is worth making small-scale and poor repairs improvements at all.
All I can say is that at least we are seeing some progress.

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seahermit
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Re: Bottle Alley is not a great place to walk along

Postby seahermit » Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:59 pm

A complete waste of money on an area where nobody much goes (unless it's raining on the way to town!) and on something which serves very little purpose. Sorry, for me it's a non-event!


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