Words: David Williams. Images: Hastings Urban Bikes.
It’s unavoidable sometimes, but making comparisons to our capital city (L**don) are often unhelpful, even damaging. Take housing, for example. In the city, it is now not uncommon to be paying close to a grand a month for a room in a shared house! And the median house price in the capital is almost double what it is here. But then so are the wages – and Hastings, like many other towns in commutable proximity, are feeling the effects of gentrification and the artificial (I mean, the housing market, right?) inflation of house and rental prices.
One of the areas, however, where comparison is useful – as in, we could be doing so much better at this – is public transport and cycling infrastructure. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had conversations with folks who cycle regularly around Hastings, or would like to, who’ve expressed that they felt much safer cycling in London than here. The joy of getting out on your bike is easily eclipsed when each trip feels like a gamble – wondering why there are cars whizzing by you at 30mph on small residential roads. Many just won’t want to take the risk, which is a great shame. It’s no wonder that many families on the school run, for example, might prefer cars over walking or cycling when they just don’t feel safe taking their kids out on the roads.
This also plays into the wider discussion around infrastructure and maintenance, or lack thereof. Not to jump on the (very rickety) pothole bandwagon, but have you seen some of those gaping maws? While inconvenient to a driver and their poor suspension, going into one of those things could be significantly more damaging to a cyclist.
You have a mind to take side roads to avoid the busier thoroughfares, but then find yourself on something of an assault course, weaving potholes and parked cars – annoying in the daytime, but potentially catastrophic at night if you don’t know your local lanes. Granted, a town like Hastings has other challenges – there’s no getting away from the hills. But there’d be no shame in gently pushing up and gleefully riding down – if it felt safe to do so.
This is where HUB – Hastings Urban Bikes, comes into the picture. Since 2006, HUB has been campaigning for better active travel networks in Hastings. 2025 saw the first ‘kidical mass’ rides organised by HUB members – a mass group of cyclists taking over the roads to provide safety in numbers. For many young riders, it was the first time they had ridden on roads around Hastings. (These will be continuing in 2026 – see www.hastingsurbanbikes.org for details!)
HUB have also made publicly available the infrastructure plans commissioned by ESCC (East Sussex County Council) with Sustrans (now Walk Wheel Cycle Trust) back in 2018. This was part of the Department for Transport’s LCWIP – Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans, which aim to deliver, nationwide, ‘Better Safety, Better Mobility, Better Streets’ – with a “sustained investment in cycling and walking infrastructure, and partnership working with local bodies, the third sector and the wider public and private sector to build a local commitment”.
The commission resulted in detailed maps and recommendations for active travel routes across East Sussex, which included a comprehensive plan for Hastings. In 2020, ESCC voted to accept these recommendations. Great news, right? Well, four years passed and there still wasn’t a sniff of activity, so HUB dug a bit deeper, and made a FOI request to ESCC to see what was being done with the £10.6 million that had been allocated. What they found was, that since the vote, “not a single infrastructure project or kilometre of new bike path has been delivered across the whole of East Sussex.”
Imagining functional, safe cycling and walking infrastructure in Hastings then isn’t just wishful thinking – the work has been started, and the money is there – the problem is, ESCC aren’t doing anything with it. Given the ongoing climate crisis and health issues related to sedentary lifestyles on the rise, the need for proper active travel routes is clear, and is part of the reason why LCWIP was devised in the first place. HUB take the position that this is unacceptable, and I would tend to agree.
With the consultation period for the Hastings Local Plan now live, this is a crucial time to make sure that due priority is given to safe active travel routes. We have the plans, we have the money, we just need to bloody well get on and do it. As alluded to at the beginning of the article, comparisons are often unhelpful – but this is one I’d like to be able to make positive – with Hastings doing walking, cycling and public realm better. We have to believe that we can.