Dogged campaigners demand council listens before it’s too late
It’s time for for the town’s council to start to listen to local people and their concerns about plans to put housing on the old bathing pool site in West St Leonards.
That’s the message from a large group of people who turned out on Saturday morning to sign a petition calling on Hastings Borough Council to have ‘urgent and meaningful engagement’ with local people who think plans to put five, five storey blocks of flats on the site is wrong.
Within just a few hours campaigners had collected close to 200 signatures and now the epetition has gone live on Hastings Borough Council’s website, just follow this link if you’d like to sign it https://hastings.moderngov.co.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=25&RPID=45975298&HPID=45975298
While campaigner Bryan Fisher is disappointed that they have had no dialogue with the council since a previous protest last November he believes now is a real opportunity for the council to think again about it’s plans.
Councillor Karl Beaney, who attended Saturday’s launch event for the new petition also thinks it’s time those leading the borough council stopped to listen, “It’a time to put the brakes on before it’s too late,” he told Hastings In Focus.
Hastings should have a marina like Sovereign Harbour Eastbourne. A marina developed at the old bathing pool site would attract people to walk along the seafront from old town and be a huge boost to the town. West St Leonards is a much better site for a marina than rock-a-nore and would preserve rock-a-nore as a part of Hastings cultural and historical heritage.
If developers/investors feel there is more profit in building housing than other things – then market forces are telling you that housing is more valued – 5 blocks of 5 story flats would presumably house 25-50 people and help those people a great deal. The 200 that oppose might not feel as strongly as those that benefit – or else they’d cough up the money between them to buy out the developer. A marina might be profitable but if it makes less than the housing then the money is telling you what people really value, or vice versa – if shops make more than housing then clearly people need/want that
I note Bryan Fisher’s comment on how there has been no dialogue with the council since their last petition.
Having been involved in two petitions some years back, this is what you get with HBC. So there is nothing really new about councillors/officers turning their backs on this campaign.
This is the price of disagreeing with the powers that be.
Looking at the site I really cannot see how it can sustain that quantity of units they want to build. Adn of course all the issues that come with it for this particular location. That for one being vehicle numbers and traffic movement alone.
Still what seems to be happening is another example of what they want not what the people want here