Hastings Celebrates Town Deal Submission
The Hastings Town Deal board is celebrating the submission of its Town Investment Plan to the government. The plan, if approved, will see £28.2m of Town Deal money and a further £85m of match funding for the town over the next six years.
Carole Dixon and Graham Peters, Co-chairs of the Town Deal Board, said;
“We are seeking investment through the Plan for projects which offer an exciting future for the town. These come from the hundreds of thoughts, ideas and comments from residents, businesses and organisations in the town who are as passionate about the town as we, the board and the council are.
“There is a real mix of projects from exciting new skills provision, to housing, to Hastings Castle, to new facilities, biodiversity in the town centre to factory and flexible co-working spaces. Many of these projects are still at concept stage so there will be lots of opportunities for communities to help shape, influence and have their say on the detail over the coming year and beyond”.
Through this investment we will see:
The story of the Norman invasion and 1066 come alive, living and breathing in the minds of our residents and visitors. The story will reach beyond the 35,000 foreign students who currently visit our town each year, and the castle will be a national destination in its own right, befitting of the world-renowned battle and story it symbolises, and its significance on our history.
The South East’s first green garden town
Visitors will also want to see the South East’s first green garden town. Green arteries buzzing with biodiversity will connect our old Norman harbour of a town centre to its nationally recognised countryside parks, seafront and urban parks. This, coupled with the wider movement and access plans and curation of our street scene, will transform the town and allow room to breathe, think and dwell – attracting much-needed footfall into our town centre.
New mixed-use homes, commercial and leisure facilities
Our town centre will be diversified, renewed and revitalised by bringing new homes and mixed-use living, commercial and leisure facilities. Electric vehicle charging points will be brought into our current aged infrastructure. It will build on our High Street Heritage Action Zone, running through to the seafront establishing a wide arc of creative and cultural enterprise development. These projects will make the town centre more connected to the seafront and our residential areas and parks, and will kick start the creation of a ’15 minute city’ for Hastings town centre, where facilities and services are within easy reach.
New jobs and the creation of two new regional ‘green’ skills bases
Supporting and interweaving with this is the creation of two new regional skills bases. The ambition is for Hastings to become a centre of skills excellence in low carbon skills. These will be focused on future demand for the green economy and land-based skills, employment and self-enterprise.
Plumpton College is to set up a new pilot skills hub in Hastings town centre introducing skills and training courses. East Sussex College Group will create a Green Technology Centre of Excellence on the East Sussex College Ore Campus providing 20 new training and learning programmes.
Our projects will create jobs; provide room to grow within the town centre and other employment sites via development of flexible workspaces and more industrial units to support our existing and growing industry sectors. Our focus on developing specialised skills for supporting the green revolution includes skills needed for retrofitting and reducing carbon emissions from aging housing, installing green technologies in homes; and repairing and maintaining electric vehicles.
Our ambition is for Hastings to become a centre of skills excellence for these future jobs so that our local workforce can help us meet our net-zero carbon target. The skills sector we will develop will have local, regional and international significance and provide new training and work opportunities for all our residents, especially our young people.
We are excited and hopeful about what this diverse range of projects can bring to the future of our town, its communities and the wider region.
The submission of the Town Investment Plan is the first major step of the six-year programme for Hastings Town Deal that the board has unanimously recommended for investment. If approved by the government, the individual projects will need to develop detailed business cases over the next year for final approval before beginning construction.
Cllr Kim Forward, leader of Hastings Borough Council, added;
“Hastings Borough Council is delighted to see the submission of the Town Investment Plan. It has been a huge undertaking by not only the Town Deal board but also the project team and project leaders to get to this point. It is a fantastic opportunity for the town to reset our ambitions for regeneration and provides an exciting future for our town to look forward to, offering benefits for all those who live, work and visit.”
What happens next?
The Hastings Town Investment Plan that sets our vision and strategy for the town was submitted to the government on Friday 29m January and details where we want to spend the £28.2m that we have bid for, (with a further £85m of ‘match’ funding). We now wait for the government to assess the plans and see how much of that figure is allocated to us in what’s called the ‘Town Deal’.
You can support our Town Deal and give a positive message to the government by following our social media channels and by sharing your comments and feedback.
We are in the early stages of this process and there will be lots of opportunities to continue to get involved and help shape the programme projects over the next six years.
