Words: SGH Image: Hastings Rental Health’s new plot.A co-op isn’t just a weird little group of people opting out of wearing shoes together, it’s a collective making a joint decision that something would work much better without any self appointed, self-entitled whoevers exploiting us or doling out unnecessary orders from upon high. Cooperativism is co-operating…
Local government
Cycling Routes in Hastings: the £10.6mil question
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…
A Month to Decide the Next 20 Years
Words: Merlin Betts Artwork: Chris Sav @disappointman Well, it was a little more than a month to decide, and they’re backdating it so it’s more like the next 18 years, but you get the idea. The Local Plan is out for consultation, and our Hastings future is being decided. The decision-makers are a government in…
Is it 1984? ‘We must cancel elections to defend the stability of our democratic institutions’
Words: Grace Lally. Pic: protests outside East Sussex County Council last year. Elections are being cancelled and opposition groups have been forced to resort to the courts to defend the democratic right to vote. In Putin’s Russia? In Trump’s America? No, this particular anti-democratic stunt is being pulled by our own local councillors here in Hastings and…
The Council is Listening – But Will They Learn?
In August HEX supporters went with Thomas (not his real name) to protest at Hastings Council because he and his young family were being threatened with eviction. They were also stuck in a temporary housing limbo because the council had deemed them to be ‘intentionally homeless’. The protest was successful in stopping the immediate threat…
Hastings Assembles for Local Democracy
On 29 March, Hastings Assembles held a community assembly for two hours in Hastings Town Centre, for local people to meet and discuss the planned changes to local government, including the plan to abolish Hastings Borough Council and bring in a new elected mayor for all of Sussex. The afternoon kicked off with Julia Hilton, leader of Hastings council, explaining the overall…





