The Hastings Town Centre Public Realm and Green Connections design is being refined by East Sussex County Council, Hastings Borough Council and Arup, ESCC’s chosen consultants.
Back in June Arup talked me through their rethink of the rethought plans – from the original design that transformed the town centre into a garden all the way from beach to station, with Harold Place as a wide seasidey plaza full of greenery and cafe tables a carefree stroll away from the sea – to a design that retains the road from A259 to Station and widens it to accommodate cycling except for a bit of a pedestrian-favouring squeeze at the centre where most walking people will want to cross from Robertson Street, Queens Road or Wellington Place.
The most recent consultation on these plans happened on September 24th in the room above the Carlisle. By the number of chairs set out in the room it looked like they expected scores of interested stakeholders to attend. In the event there were eleven people in the room, mostly the home crowd from ESCC, HBC and Arup. I was only there by hearsay accident.
A representative from Arup talked us through the re-design again – there will be three pocket parks as “compensation” for having Harold Place remain as a road – one of them to be built over the not-to-be-resurrected public lavatories.
Though described as compensation, losing Harold Place as a pedestrian park is losing the original design’s connection to the beach and its position in all-day sunshine. The East-West arms of Robertson Street and Wellington Place are narrower and in shade most of the day. My impression is that Arup, the consultants, know this is not the optimal outcome. But the County Council have control of the money and they won’t use their powers to design a whole transport system for Hastings so the Harold Place road has to stay where it is…for now.
Thursday’s market will be relocated halfway down Wellington Place on ground designated as loading bays for the rest of the week – so most of the time, if cafe tables don’t fill the gap, mid-Wellington Place is going to be pretty bare. And officially closed to cyclists.
At HUB we have discussed how it would be helpful to build a copious loading bay at the top, opposite Wellington Square alongside Albert Road by Poundstretcher for large lorries. Then electric pallet trucks could be used for delivery over the last few hundred metres – the norm elsewhere for pedestrian-only places. Kamson’s Chemist, closer to it than any other outlet, would find it especially useful as they have emergency deliveries coming in and going out all day.
https://www.hastingstowndeal.co.uk/town-centre-public-realm-green-connections
In this version, cyclists have two short lengths of slightly sunk 2-way cycle paths at the east end of Robertson Street and through Harold Place from A259 to the centre – which will briefly keep them from bothering the pedestrians. There’ll be no provision for them through Wellington Place to connect them with Old Town and the new £3m’s worth of investment in the West Hill cafe and Castle. Havelock Road, now to stay grey and not be greened, will only have room for a cycle lane going up…and not even up all the way to Station and College. Cycling back down will be in with the bus traffic, unprotected. So still no good for keeping independent ten year olds safe.
We were told, counter to any townsfolk opinion I’ve ever heard, that among near 1000 public consultation responses there was overwhelming support for two-way road access for buses. Actually there was simply Stagecoach insistence on it, backed up by residents of the old people’s home on Harold Place who were not reassured their bus stops could be moved equidistant round the corner. They could have been.
So, the ESCC-HBC-Arup committee, hearing public demands for bus routes, cycling infrastructure and larger public realm spaces at the same time as not grasping the green connnections aspiration, has designed for us a camel instead of a horse.
Slight improvements to the area are in the plan – like a 20mph limit, a reduction of taxi waiting spaces from 18 to 13, a pedestrian-prioritising traffic light at the centre squeeze point and food delivery bikes parking at the top of Wellington Place rather than outside the food joints. However, worryingly, the few stakeholders in the room, including me, still had to ask for deliveries to be confined to between 7am and 9am, general traffic to be kept out altogether rather than just at certain times and a size and weight restriction to be put on delivery vehicles. We’ll see if these no-brainers stick.
Completion is due by the end of 2027. In the meantime they have to find ways to make the businesses happy, go through Traffic Regulation Orders, design the rain gardens to chanel the water they catch the right way, choose paving materials appropriate to the weight of vehicles they eventually allow into the space and so on.
I am left wishing this project were in the hands of people who had created a few town centres before, understood functional walking and cycling, knew that good walking conditions deliver passengers to bus companies and that short runs of cycle lane are neither here nor there.
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