Journalists and others have been commenting on the lack of interest Hastings has shown in the demise of HBC but, it seems to me that Hastings is only just finding out it’s happening. As we set off up the West Hill on Monday for the first of the two discussions on the topic that Hastings Assembles is hosting for HBC, I rather wondered if anyone would turn up, But, as the clock ticked to our start-time, they came and we had enough people for five discussion circles. Lynne opened the session, and we were off…
Having had a good old rant earlier in the year about councillors not telling Hastings what was about to happen, I acknowledged yesterday that we had several councillors (Green and Indie) and two council officers present, all of whom are hard at work on the topic now. Councillors Becca Horn, Julia Hilton and Paul Barnett addressed the room to explain the different options, and how they saw them (Becca also graciously explained the Labour Party’s chosen option), then I spoke for a minute or so, having been charged by Hastings Assembles to open the debate up, for the sake of those who might not like any of the options, or might want something different entirely.
A single Unitary?
After the group discussions, we all fed back out thoughts to the main group, and most contributions were about how people saw Hastings as quite exceptional, both in its value and in the nature of the problems it has, and worries about our town being subsumed in a huge organization centred elsewhere in wealthier parts of the county.
The other side of the coin was the notion that people have never been clear what happens at county, and what at borough council level, so perhaps a unitary could give us a single point of contact for everything.
A coastal strip?
There was quite a lot of interest in the idea of linking up the coastal towns, so that councillors could team up to address the issues specific to us – but the downside of that became clear when we looked at the huge stretch of coast it would apply to – how would we relate to Peacehaven, or even Chichester? It’s hard to see how there could be significant cohesion and also, if we divide Sussex into ‘coastal and rural’, we can see where all the money is and many of us had this feeling that not much of it would find its way to the coastal towns.
Five Districts
The federal model would keep the five districts, Eastbourne, Hastings, Lewes, Rother, and Wealden, as administrative areas, and is the only one that would acknowledge the singularity of Hastings that so many people expressed but, as the other councils in Sussex seem to be more in favour of a single unitary, it’s hard to see how we could persuade them to ‘go federal’.
Nae King!
Two ideas really stood out in my mind from the afternoon. The first one was that just about everyone prefers keeping things local, and just about no-one likes the stark discovery that a government can just up and decide to end your local council, however dysfunctional it may be.
The other really illustrates why I value these community discussions so much. Every single time I go to an assembly, I come away saying “I never knew that!” over something someone said. You need everyone, to be sure you’ve covered everything!
In this case, what I hadn’t realized was that various questionnaires have asked us what we think of having a Mayor of Sussex (me, I’m very negative on that – the city mayors get upwards of £100k a year – what on earth would a Mayor of a whole county want to be paid?) But – here’s the vital point I hadn’t noticed – the government hasn’t specified who the Mayor will be accountable to, and in what capacity. The Mayor of London relies on the votes of an assembly on everything he or she does. Would Sussex have an assembly? And if it did, would it, like the county council, be dominated by Tories from the rich, rural heartland of Sussex? If so, we might just as well go back to the days of the Kingdom of Sussex, when the peasants along the coast had zero say in anything.
As the Americans are currently saying in response to Trump’s disregard for Congress, We want nae king!
Concordia Hall
There’s another Hastings Assembles debate at Concordia Hall on Wednesday evening. If you haven’t had a chance to get stuck into this discussion yet, do come along. There will be councillors there to talk to as well – and, of course, a selection of the famously unique citizenry of Hastings. Grab yourself a free ticket on the link below and come along…
I didn’t expect it, but this is fun. Every time I go to an assembly, I meet old friends, discover new ones, and learn a lot!
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Kay Green 