A VISION OF HOPE FOR HASTINGS
Green Party Manifesto for Hastings & St Leonards
Imagine a Hastings where:
- Residents are proud of their town and feel safe, valued and heard
- There are enough quality, affordable and energy-efficient homes for all
- Our open spaces and natural places are clean, cared for and teeming with life
- Tourists are wowed by our incredible heritage sites and our unique culture and events
- Local businesses and talent flourish in our sustainable, regenerative local economy
- Getting around is easy, clean and pleasurable for all
- Our young people have plentiful education, training and job opportunities
- We grow in balance with our natural resources and landscape
…and all of this is achieved within our target of net zero carbon emissions…
THIS IS OUR VISION FOR HASTINGS
EVERYONE DESERVES AN AFFORDABLE SUITABLE HOME
Greens understand that all things are connected. Poor housing impacts our health, local economy and carbon footprint. Our housing is in crisis and we must fix this first.
Greens will:
✔ Use revenue from the recently increased tax on our many empty and second homes to appoint an Empty Homes Officer, create a Landlords’ Register, Renters’ Charter and Tenants’ Advisory Service which, together, will tackle our sub-standard private rented sector.
✔ Acquire more emergency accommodation, which will not only provide desperately needed housing for those in need but will also make us significant savings as a town (see Budget section below).
✔ Identify interim land to build quality, affordable and efficient modular housing.
✔ Work with local groups on a housing strategy including support for housing coops and more community land trusts which can protect new social rent homes from right to buy.
✔ Hold social housing providers accountable and make it easy for tenants to report problems.
✔ Support the national Green Party campaign for controls on rent, second homes and Air BnBs and ending ‘right to buy’.
BALANCED BUDGETS, THRIVING LOCAL BUSINESS
Money is tighter than ever after years of cuts. We can’t rely on central government – we have to fix it ourselves. Our town is bursting with creative and entrepreneurial talent which must be supported, in the right way. We need to think creatively to achieve more with fewer resources.
Greens will:
✔ Pool resources and skills with neighbouring councils to achieve savings through shared working.
✔ Acquire further temporary accommodation to reduce the council’s spending on private rents.
✔ Work with our voluntary sector to access funding streams to support the town.
✔ Maximise council-owned assets for the benefit of the community and local economy.
✔ Work with colleges and businesses to offer training and education in locally-needed skills.
✔ Identify funds to allow local businesses to learn about and move towards decarbonisation, to share best practices and help strengthen our local low carbon economy.
✔ Develop and support local ethical credit unions and community banks.
✔ Set up the ‘Hastings Pledge’ to commit to shopping, recruiting and volunteering locally.
HAPPY AND HEALTHY PEOPLE AND PLACES
Our living environment is being failed by profit-driven companies and deep government cuts, as is shown by the pollution of our seas and the recent flooding of our town. Greens understand how important access to nature and leisure is to our health.
Greens will:
✔ Hold Southern Water to account, and campaign hard to end sewage dumping and town centre flooding.
✔ Apply for a new bathing water quality beach at West St Leonards.
✔ Make walking and cycling safer, easier and more pleasurable in our town by campaigning at county level for 20mph speed limits in residential areas.
✔ Continue to support Active Hastings in promoting community leisure activities.
✔ Seek collaboration with national sports bodies to revamp local facilities.
✔ Create a ‘garden town’ to reconnect people with growing food and tending green spaces by identifying opportunities for more allotment provision and tree planting in the new Local Plan.
✔ Support and strengthen the network of voluntary groups that contribute to tidying our beaches, streets and look after our green spaces.
✔ Broaden the garden town vision across the town, connecting communities through green corridors with safe, car-free routes.
✔ Ensure steady progress towards becoming an age-friendly community.
✔ Extend play and sport opportunities across the town in partnership with other sporting bodies and with a particular focus on engaging women and girls.
✔ Access existing funding to plant trees and green our streets.
✔ Work positively with landowners to foster the recovery of the natural world and increase biodiversity.
TAKING PRIDE IN OUR TOWN
Hastings has many assets including vibrant cultural events and incredible architecture. Our town has suffered great deprivation, but we owe it to our children to turn the tide.
Greens will:
✔ Promote community ownership of assets and support groups to release funding
✔ Set up a design-review panel with residents for our town centre regeneration
✔ Co-create a tourism strategy with local businesses and cultural leaders that links to the East Sussex Tourism Strategy
✔ Promote our town imaginatively to increase visitor numbers, making our local tourist industry more viable
✔ Support all three town centres, including a St Leonards bicentenary year in 2027
✔ Secure funding to re-open town centre CCTV operations and increase police patrols
✔ Work closely with addiction support services, probation and homelessness charities
✔ Explore partnership with community payback schemes to help clean up our streets
PROTECTING OUR PLANET – and ourselves
Only Greens truly understand the connection between the problems we face and our biggest challenge of all: climate breakdown. Our town is unusual in that we have one of the UK’s highest percentages (30%) of pre-1919 homes in the country. This makes for great streetscapes but means we have many cold and draughty homes.
Greens will:
✔ Bring insulation grant schemes together to hit our retrofit targets and tackle fuel poverty.
✔ Establish a retrofit task force which brings together all the advice streams and funding, using the current housing taskforce as a model.
✔ Use the council’s acquisition of housing for temporary accommodation as an opportunity to achieve the highest standards possible.
✔ Develop local skills through our colleges to look after our many precious historic buildings and make them fit for the future.
✔ Work with our local community energy sector to fund solar panels on public buildings.
✔ Scrutinise all development plans for their climate impact.
✔ Learn from other ambitious Green-run councils (such as Lancaster)to ensure our Local Plan has the most ambitious policies possible on climate action, protecting biodiversity and energy efficiency standards.
✔ Instigate a council environmental procurement policy.
✔ Support local businesses in their efforts to reduce their carbon impact.
✔ Lobby East Sussex County Council to provide more electric vehicle infrastructure and low-carbon transport.
✔ Campaign for increased bus services to make public transport convenient and affordable.
✔ Apply for feasibility funding to ‘green’ council-owned industrial estates such as Castleham and Churchwood, for example by solar panelling large industrial roofs and working with SW Storm Water taskforce to introduce sustainable urban drainage.
✔ Utilise the council’s climate reserve fund to reinstate a Climate Action Officer, focussing on funding for fuel poverty, local energy networks, and climate-related health issues.
✔ Develop a climate adaptation plan with updated flood management policy emphasising land-based solutions, and push Southern Water’s Stormwater task force for implementation.
✔ Join cross-party ‘UK100’ group of councils with highest ambitions to tackle climate change
✔ Lobby government for funding for coastal towns with cliffs and areas liable to landslip. This is an increasing risk as we experience more extreme rainfall events.