Green Councillor News from Councillor Julia Hilton and Councillor Claire Carr

We thought you might like to know what we have both been up to since Claire joined the Greens in December and we became a Green Group on Hastings Council.

Council Budget

At the recent full council meeting to agree the budget, two of our amendments were supported. One to make sure climate risk was considered in any capital investment and the second to ensure any spending of reserves was brought to the scrutiny committee so increasing transparency. However we abstained from the budget as a whole as we don’t approve of the council’s plans to build a hotel on land that was earmarked for housing or to build a restaurant for a chain on the site of the Harold Place toilets with no disabled access.

Old Hastings and Tressell

Julia has been surveying residents in Old Hastings to get their views on which streets suffer most from dangerous driving and anti social parking, particularly at school drop off times. She is also talking to the heads of all the local schools to seek a better solution from the county council.

She spoke at a recent planning committee meeting against a proposal at the amusement park, calling for a condition to ensure the path around the boating lake isn’t blocked by future developments. There are more controversial planning applications in the pipeline including proposals to build on a local wildlife site on Barley Lane. She will also speak against this when it comes to planning.

At East Sussex County Council, she is on the Scrutiny Committee and has asked for a report on the performance of Sea Change, our local regeneration company, following the resignation of both Rother and Hastings councillors from the board. She is also on a group working on the revision of the Local Transport Plan.

Castle

Claire has been talking to residents, the Diocese of Chichester and others about starting a community gardening project near Wallingers Walk.

This area has seen an increase in anti-social behaviour and she is keen to see if this can be tackled by people reclaiming the space for the community  as well as increasing biodiversity.

This week Claire is due to speak to the planning committee against the restaurant development at Harold Place on the site of the old public toilets. She will be raising issues about noise, traffic and disabled access.  Although there are many other objections to this project she can only bring up those relevant to planning guidance at this meeting. Claire will continue to push against this proposal so the last link between our town centre and seafront is not lost.

Julia and Claire are also calling for an upgrade of the pavements along the sea front, our most important sea front route and held a walkabout with the Highways Steward recently, pointing out the low quality of repairs and the huge amount of broken pavement that creates serious trip hazards.

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