I’ve been a reporter for more than 40 years. I’m not a writer, I’m not a columnist, I’m not an opinion former I’m a good old fashioned, well seasoned, hack writes Stuart Baillie.

It’s strange because in my career I’ve had short spells away from news but even when I was working in other industries I always had a problem describing what I did because at the end of the day, regardless of what else I was doing, I still saw myself as a journalist, a news reporter. At the end of the day that was my first love and even now I still love chasing down a good story.

When I launched Hastings In Focus back in 2018 it was in reaction to what I saw as a failing local press and I’ve written at length about my views on that and if anyone is interested they can read my substack piece https://stuartbaillie.substack.com/p/and-then-the-greed-set-in?r=2dav26 called, And Then The Greed Set In, that sets out what I believe led to the ruiniation of the newspaper business as we knew it.

Now we all made fun of ‘the local rag’ but back in the day we queued up to buy, it was based on a fear of missing out; did we know anyone who’d been up in court that week for example? But we also wanted to scan the school news, the sports news and we devoured every page to spot a name we knew or the photograph of a neighbour. When we wanted a new job we’d look at the situations vacant pages of the local paper. Local car dealers advertised their stock in its pages because when we wanted to buy a new car we turned to the local paper and one title I worked on could have 30 pages a week of houses for sale… yep, those were the days.

Local newspapers were important to local communities for very serious reasons too, who else was going to hold your local council to account and ask difficult questions on your behalf? A council spends millions of pounds every year and that’s your money they’re spending.

So Hastings In Focus was born. In a good month we’d see 40,000 to 50,000 visits to the site. Hastings In Focus told people things they’d never known before like how Hastings Borough Council had borrowed tens of millions of pounds to buy commercial property and spend more than a million replacing the old country park visitors centre – a glorified shed – with Bale House, a straw built vanity project that went years over schedule and ended up costing double what was originally budgeted – if only it were the only council project you could say that about!

Hastings Council also spent hunderd of thousands of your pounds pursuing the idea of building houses on the playing fields at Bulverhythe. Everyone said it was a bad idea, a non-starter, including the Environment Agency but HBC ploughed on, even lodging a planning application.

The Bulverhythe project was the straw that broke the camels back for me when I was told one day by a councillor that Bulverhythe didn’t flood – no – apparnetly it just gets water logged. Somehow I think if you were standing shin-deep in water in your newly built house you’d struggle to appreciate the finer points of difference between flooding and water logging. After hearing that I lost the will to live, or more precisely the will to report on the actions of a council that had clearly gone bonkers.

Recently I’ve been urged by several people to think about firing up Hastings In Focus. It has never fully gone away, it’s always been there and amazingly it still attracts 100 or so hits a day which is enormously gratifying.

So recently you might have heard a podcast called Hastings Five in 5 that was me and I was delighted by how well it went down so in the coming days there will be a second edition and maybe after that a third and a fourth and who knows what.

I’m also throwing out an invitation to our politicians, past and present, to avail themselves of the site and I’m hoping to persuade some of them to make themselves available for a fuller chat about the big issues; like why has it taken so long to sort out the junction at the top of Sedlescombe Road North? And why is what we are finally getting an inferior layout to what had originally been envisaged?

What we’re getting is what someone recently described as ‘traffic lights with a bit iof a slip road’ when what had originally been planned was a roundabout that would have worked wonders at keeping traffic moving.

I’d like to know too how many millions it has cost us for the Maccano set at the top of Battle Road. There are serious question need to be answered other than cost. I understand issues relating to project are the subject of legal proceedings but who is suing who and why. I understand it’s an unholy mess so don’t we deserve to know what;’s going on as we’re funding it all through council tax etc.

And what about the derelict and abandoned house half way down Alma Terrace? Back in 2019 the borough council told Hastings In Focus: “Enforcement are investigating the matter and we will provide you with updates when we can.” That’s been a long investigation! Two weeks ago I approached the council to ask for an update about what’s happening at number 39 and I’ve nudged them for a response on a few occasions since but the silence has been deafening and no one is saying anything. How would you feel if you’d been living next door to a house that is quite literally falling down for the best part of 20 years and no one seems to be doing anything about it?

Stay tuned folks and if you have anything you’d like to say or if there is anythiung you think we should be investigating then just email hastingsinfocus@gmail.com I look forward to hearing from you!

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