Hastings Forum

The council is set to spend circa £16000 on revamping the damaged 'spalling' areas of the concrete subway below the promenade around Bottle Alley.

http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/ ... -1-6498859

I suspect they are intending to decide also on whether to allow 'Kiosks' as well as the other ideas posted by Geoff, which I think meant creating beach huts, below and similar.
It is true that the area is damp, a little dark and not used to its full potential.
There may be plenty of creative ideas floating around but the cost is not likely to be fully met by the council.

sorry - it was £160 000 and not £16000.

The cost of complete and full restoration would be £1.6 million, which the council do not have currently.

http://www.hastingsandryelabour.org.uk/ ... reports-2/

I hope I'm not offending anyone but, referring back to your header, Bottle Alley is not frankly a nice place to be, I myself hate it and wish it would fall down!

Well, maybe the original aspiration was well-meant but nowadays it is dark, damp, claustrophobic and doesn't feel safe for someone walking there at night. It was built when there was a love-affair with new materials e.g. concrete, but in a sunny (sometimes) seaside town I think something much more open and elegant would have been better.

The proof I would say is that the alley is largely deserted, everyone prefers to be up top enjoying the sunsets.

May be I am unusual but when I visit I will usually walk the alley, and not on top. You may not remember when it had glass shutters that could be drawn across if it was rough or rainy so you could still see the sea.
Pure nostalgia which is entirely out of place when the Council will no doubt be facing a fourth year of austerity finance

The last time we walked along there was a year ago (it was in the daytime)
and there was a gang of down-and-outs (is that term allowed?) down there and a
couple of police officers were talking to them. I certainly wouldn't walk down there
at night

I can't imagine it has ever been lit up at night and presumably there were vagabonds (but not skate-boarders) in the past.
So perhaps it has always been a bit unwelcoming, apart from the time when shutters could be drawn, but then it would have been on a grey rainy day and would have been more of a temporary respite, on a journey from A to Z.
Apart from the 'bottle glass' panels and lost shutters there is not much going for it currently.
A damp dank narrow passageway with urine smells and sometimes people skating stones along for mongrel dogs to chase.
Drinkers sitting on the 'banjo' areas which are littered with their rubbish.
But then it can't simply be be left to decay and the cost of removal is probably even greater than restoration, and it has probably some sort of protection order on it.

Someone must have a vision.

Like any other run-down area, Bottle Alley needs to be turned around. The repairs and new lighting should encourage more people to use it, which in turn should encourage the "undesirables" to move elsewhere. A café using some of the space behind the bottle wall would be a great idea.

Bottle alley holds very different memories for me.

As an ex-skateboarder I spent so many hours down there. Those little walls are the perfect angle to ride, and the drop to the beach the other side adds an element of danger should you mess it up.

So perhaps not the same romantic memories as some, but good ones all the same.

It makes some good sense to revamp the bottle alley as the nearby Pier is slowly being refurbished.
What I don't like is the news that there will be a charge to enter the Pier, I do hope that is not true.

Agreed - a charge would be a deterrent for many people, unless it was a nominal fee. On the other hand, I suppose the HPWRT does have to think about ongoing maintenance. The money has to come from somewhere.