The Streets of St Leonards

The streets of Central St Leonards look set for a number of improvements following developments, consultations and initiatives from diverse stakeholders ranging from the Central St Leonards Town Team to the Neighbourhood Police Team. HOT’s Richard Hull heard all about it when he caught up with HBC’s Terry Drinkwater at the ‘Making Central St Leonards Our Business’ event on Wednesday October 10.

Terry Drinkwater is the Regeneration Co-ordinator for Central St Leonards and he’s a very busy man these days. Wednesday 10 October saw him spending a full day ensconced in the London Road shop-front of the former Castle Dry Cleaners, hosting the Town Team’s first major consultation focussing principally on the local retail businesses. He had previously circulated questionnaires to the 225 retail businesses in the area and was immensely pleased that 75 of those businesses sent someone along to the consultation event. Many attendees took the opportunity to express their views on a variety of issues related to the Town Team’s central vision of creating “a thriving commercial centre and social and cultural meeting place”. Terry reported that there had been many lengthy discussions on parking and I saw evidence on the flip-charts of many of the usual issues such as the lack of venues, the need for street markets and other events, and the difficulties with dog owners and street drinkers.

Although local retail businesses were the focus this time, there is a much wider remit: local venue owner and member of the Town Team Carol Sanigar has previously said: “We want to develop an action plan which is truly owned by the local community that will make real improvements to the area, attracting local residents and visitors alike.”

When I visited the shop-front at the end of the day to get an update from Terry, I also bumped into three of the four members of the Neighbourhood Police Team, also visiting the consultation, so I took the opportunity to chat with PC Mark Dicker. He first of all confirmed that the size of the team had recently been increased with the addition of a second full-time PC in addition to the two PCSOs, which makes the Central St Leonards NPT one of the largest in Hastings and the only one with two full time PCs. In addition, however, PCs from two neighbouring wards will be brought into the area from time to time.

If you would like to know more about the Central St Leonards Town Team contact Terry Drinkwater at tdrinkwater@hastings.gov.uk

For details of the Neighbourhood Police Team see their entry on the Sussex Police web pages.

See also the pages for Gensing & Central St Leonards Community Forum and the St Leonards Business Association

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