Shaping the future of Hastings’ past

Residents and visitors often have an opinion that Hastings and St Leonards is special. What makes it so? Could the borough be improved or looked after better? Hastings Commons is trying to find out, as Bernard McGinley reports.

Are there aspects of Hastings’ past you love? Do you know why? On Saturday 29 March (from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) at Priory Meadow shopping centre, there will be efforts to find out. Hastings Commons, the community organisation best noted for its regeneration of the Observer Building (OB), is seeking views on these matters from local residents at a series of listening sessions. The views will help create the new Shared Heritage Action Plan for Everyone (SHAPE) — a plan that will highlight what matters to local people in Hastings and St Leonards.

Heritage is a slippery word.  Is stuff good because it’s old?  Is it old because it’s good? Certainly, it’s more than old buildings and can be (for instance) places, spaces, music and memories. All benefit from being looked after. The Hastings Commons eminence and Commoner-at-Large, Jess Steele, said:

SHAPE is asking local people what matters to them from the past that they would like to save or celebrate. By listening to lots of different people, we’re building a ‘treasure trove’ of heritage assets — buildings, traditions and people. From there we’ll aim to agree shared priorities and create mini action plans, along with suggestions for a new approach to looking after and celebrating the town’s wonderful heritage.

This final stage of the process – where the SHAPE is formulated – will take place from June to September.

Listening bases

Hastings Commons is also setting up ‘listening bases’ across the town to get feedback from residents in places they already spend time, as well as running a monthly heritage forum open to anyone actively engaged in heritage in the town. The present listening bases (with more to be added) are:

• Bullet Coffee House, 38 Robertson St, Hastings

• London Trader pub, 4-7 East Beach St, Hastings

• Holy Trinity Church, Robertson St, Hastings.

Residents can also share their thoughts online to support the development of the plan. More information on Hastings Commons and heritage is here. Hastings Heritage Forum is contactable on heritage@hastingscommons.com.

Holy Trinity Hastings (HTH) church in the America Ground is closely involved. Emma Kersey, heritage project coordinator there, said ‘HTH church is pleased to participate in the Hastings Heritage Forum and join with others in our town who are engaging with heritage in all its forms. This is helping us to understand what from the past is important to our local community and shaping future plans for conservation and protection of our beautiful buildings, stories and events.’

Hastings Commons is already at work on a project to revive St Mary in the Castle.

Talking the talk

Heritage and culture are entwined. In 2022 Hastings Borough Council (HBC) did a ‘Cultural Strategy Consultation’.  It was a shambolic report, an unstrategic document that made no mention of:

Bohemia, bonfire, café, choice|choose,  civic pride, coastal path, Combe Haven, concert, cricket, cookery|cuisine, [Coastal] Currents, gardens, hall, heritage asset, holiday, hotel, Master Plan, Mayday,  morris, old, Old Town, open space, the Oval, Park (as in Country), political, pub, St Leonards, St Mary in-the-Castle,  [language] school the Stade, station, statue, television (home of), Town Crier, trust, University of Brighton, venue, Week, and Whistler’s Mother.

Instead words such as ‘vibrant’ ‘vision’ and ‘community’ were flung around like confetti, unpersuasively. That report was rightly buried and never heard of again. Happily, in 2017 there was a much better Hastings Heritage Report from Drury McPherson Partnership for HBC. With its details and 21 recommendations this could serve to provoke further or alternative ideas on the borough’s many assets and possible future. Additionally, there have been many high flown proposals in recent years, such as:

• the Council’s Culture-Led Regeneration: A Strategy for Hastings 2016-21

• the Hastings Town Centre and White Rock Retail and Leisure Assessment and Urban Design Analysis (2016)

• the Hastings Town Centre and Bohemia Area Action Plan (AAP)

• the Seafront Strategy

• the White Rock Park [sic] and Bohemia Masterplan by White Rock Arkitkter (2017)

• the Bohemia Masterplan — Leisure and Culture (2019)

• the East Sussex Cultural Strategy 2013 – 2023

• the Conservation Area Appraisals, long in preparation.

Is it possible that residents can do better than officers and consultants this time? The pending bicentenary of St Leonards is one possible springboard.

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