Harold Place – fit for a King?

[1 quart]

i have started using public transport again, and, before covid, i always boarded the bus for home at Harold Place

now this stop is quite an experience even if the bus arrival time is only 5 minutes it is often a long 5 minutes as the space has evolved into a preferred area for street drinkers to gather and each have a lot to strenuously say for themselves

there is a shop across the road that is a very convenient store for cans of drink, and the bus shelter itself is taken over for the use of the bench seat and a cover in bad weather

i understand for alcohol there are streets and public places protection orders and recently these have been relaxed to allow new pub laws for drinking on pavements and streets

now to avoid the overload on my senses i end my shopping trips walking up Devonshire Road to the rail station to be chauffeured back to my warm and cosy home

i'm sure Harold would still be keeping a regal eye out for the live-and-let-live laws in Hastings

[Richard]

The nearby public conveniences, removed a few years ago, were always a magnet for alcoholics and druggies.
It seems like they are still clinging to what is left.
Nearby above 'Oxfam' there is (or was) some sort of drug-rehab unit, which sort of explains part of the equation.
I don't believe relaxation of public places protection orders (if indeed true) have anything to do with the longer-term problem.

[1 quart]

good to know, now understand the reason for that location. i’ve looked up where you mean above Oxfam and, as a service for substance misuse, their website suggests a lot is peer to peer and support and advice is given by people who have regained their lives and self-worth

a while ago i was at the back of a long snaking queue in the Plaza pharmacy and gradually going forward i saw that i’d joined the methadone dispensing queue. i was chuckling to myself at the time but the amount of people taking advantage of such life changing help was impressive

i am often asked for money in the street and at my door, there must be a lot of begging, burglaries and shop lifting to feed such expensive addiction, and, on a smaller scale to importation through Dover, it’s worth the £100 taxi fare to the London suppliers to regularly ferry youngsters to their valued clients along the coast

government in Scotland has successfully reduced drink levels by limiting the amount of hours that alcohol sales can take place and introducing a minimum unit price, and the NHS and these community services are in it for the long haul and worth their weight in gold

so thriftless the waste ground where those conveniences were, perhaps to regain a use for public benefit, would be to establish a shelter there with ice cream vans and a few stalls. and for the winter a soup kitchen and free distribution of clothing and footwear. and a couple of toilets and washing facilities wouldn’t go amiss

[Richard]

There are already dozens of organisations offering help to the homeless and needy in Hastings/St. Leonards.
A Baptist church at the corner of nearby Warrior square serves as a soup kitchen.
I hate to say this but no matter how much help is offered to the needy and drug-dependent there will always be a problem.

As for alcohol, why on earth don't the government impose cigarette-style warnings on bottles to make it look less attractive?
Probably because alcohol is more socially acceptable?

[1 quart]

how true, thousands die or admitted to hospital or have related mental/behavioural health problems because of illicit drug use and as you say (although it could also be classed as a form of drug) alcohol consumption is socially acceptable and positively encouraged

it took years for the government to accept the loss in revenue to put measures in place to reduce deaths associated with tobacco. now to avoid the gruesome images depicted on packaging smokers decant their ciggies and rolling and pipe tobacco into their own preferred boxes and pouches

i was pleased to read there are already dozens of organisations offering help to the homeless and needy in Hastings/St. Leonards and about the Baptist church soup kitchen, that may be church funded though, so i will enquire within!

great news that Hastings has been successful in being awarded £24.3m funding through the Towns Fund. i wonder if any of that will be used to enable Harold Place as a project to come to life. long overdue is resolving where the public loos were but relocating and updating those 2 ugly phone boxes would be a start