As one of the most under-served communities in the South East, Hastings is no stranger to promises of transformative funding from central government. But campaigners hope the community involvement and strong green element mean the new Hastings Town Deal will be different. This blog by Thalia Griffiths looks at their plans.
more “Hastings hopes to be South East’s first Garden Town”
We’re celebrating the completion and final installation of the seaside themed mosaic created by the community.
We are having a little celebration on Saturday 24th Aug from 3-5pm in front of Warrior Square Station, come with your smiles and we will supply refreshments. If it’s raining we will be in Zoom Arts.
We’ve made a start on the community mosaic, involving local school children, Gizmos children’s club, clients from the Seaview Centre and volunteer local residents. Here are some photos to give you a flavour of how it’s looking.
There is still a lot to do! Please help us complete this lovely piece of community artwork – lots of times you can pop into Zoom Arts this week:
Mon 15 July 2.30–4.30pm
Tue 16 July 1.30–4.00pm
Wed 17 July 2.30–4.30pm
Thu 18 July 2.30–4.30pm
Fri 19 July 10.00–12.30pm and 1.30–4.00pm
We had some great feedback on the beach walk on June 3rd where locals looked for things to draw for the mosaic design.
Here are a few photos and a poster with the times and dates of the mosaic making workshops.
We hope to publish the design developed by Emma Harding very soon.
Things are getting exciting now that we have collected all the drawings from the community. They will be the foundation for the design created by Emma Harding, the mosaic artist. Watch this space…
We’ve been working hard fundraising and we are very happy to say we (that’s the community/public/everyone!) are going to create the Mosaic at Warrior Square Station this summer.
This will consist of 11 days of workshops from 10th-19th July at Zoom Arts (right by the station and the mosaic site).
We would love your help at the workshops.
It would be easy things like:
Getting room ready
Doing some of the mosaic- most important!
Watching that people don’t put their grubby hands on the artwork!!!
Keep an eye on things not getting too messy in general
Sweeping floor occasionally
Keeping table and work area clean & regularly wiped
Showing people where toilets are
Equipping people with aprons/shirts etc
Giving out refreshments
Also there is a Beach Walk early June to help with the design.
We are having a prep & training session for volunteers on Thurs 11th July from 7-9pm– can you come along?
Email info@transitiontownhastings.org.uk.
(Illustration of mosaic is not final design)
The name comes from similar schemes for Older Women’s Community Housing (OWCH). This group added the “H” for Hastings. It was started in October 2017.
Brekke Larsen explained the vision behind HOWCH was from Denmark where her godfather lived in a co-operative housing scheme. This enabled him to maintain his independence whilst ensuring that he was never lonely. Many years later, Brekke’s niece separated from her husband and went to live with her children in a shared development. In this scheme, everyone had their own front doors but with some shared amenities. There is now a movement towards this type of development in the UK.
Action for Rural Sussex is one such organisation that is involved in providing advice and support for such schemes.
There are about 200 Community Land Trusts (CLTs) around the country e.g. Bristol, York, Brent (the most famous). This type of scheme also features in Hastings Borough Council’s (HBC) manifesto. In some ways, CLTs fill the gap left by the reduction in council housing.
This is the background to the idea behind
As the long-standing, local organisation The Hastings Trust draws to a close it’s now possible to view an online archive of the trust’s work. For over 30 years the trust worked with scores of local partners on hundreds of initiatives to improve the quality of life for people in Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea. The website is a record of that achievement and a resource for those who follow in it’s footsteps. Archive materials featuring 25 years of conservation, environmental improvements and regeneration work includes complete sets of newsletters and annual reviews plus a selection of photos, films, presentations and project documents that are free to download.
On May 11th Julian Howell gave a short talk about cohousing projects and a very clear ‘how to’ to help groups to get started. Julian Howell is a founder member of Sussex Cohousing a Brighton-based community in the making.
After the talk there was a lively discussion about what people were interested in doing locally. There was an interest in finding ways to live together in a supportive and collaborative way or living with a deeper connection to nature by sharing land. We hope the conversation continues and cohousing projects or land sharing projects can be realised in and around Hastings, a town where good quality affordable housing is hard to find.
Download Julian’s talk here:
About cohousing 2018 – Julian Howell
Sign up to the Hastings Cohousing discussion if you are interested in joining a conversation about cohousing in the Hastings area – a closed group on Groups.io.
New Economics Foundation have recently published this guide to help groups looking to build community-led, affordable housing development in their area overcome one of their greatest obstacles: acquiring land.
Friends of Hastings Pier have been pushed into a corner by an Administration process that is unsuitable for a community-owned asset. They have put forward alternative plans which are exciting and realistic but been told that they won’t take the bid seriously unless we have £1M available. That’s why they’re pushing this crowdfunder. Raising half a million pounds now from individuals and organisations will keep us ‘in the game’ and encourage other funders to invest alongside you to make our Pier a success.
Hastings Pier has been a beacon of community-led regeneration, a pioneer in the world of community shares, and an inspiration to community groups across the country. The hazard faced is not just for Hastings; if the People’s Pier fails perceptions of community ownership will be badly damaged, even though community ownership was never the problem and is definitely part of the solution.
Please help in any way you can – most obviously and most immediately by clicking the link and then spreading the word.
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/fohp2018