The one and only Hastings Kidical Mass ride for 2026 will happen on Sunday 27th September at 10am – start inside the Bethune Way entrance to Alexandra Park. Flier to follow! (Not the 25th which is a Friday and mistakenly made its way into July’s Newsletter 🙄 Sorry!)
We will be riding for fun, for solidarity, in honour of International Car Free Day, which falls on September 22nd every year, and to show public interest in a new purpose-built Walking and Cycling Route from Hastings Town Centre to Conquest Hospital.
An extra reason for getting better active travel routes to the hospital is that for the next two years – from this September to August 2028 – The Ridge will be continuously dug up somewhere along its length to lay a new gas main. Around 90% of workers, patients and visitors to the hospital arrive by private car and the congestion that causes is bad even without the roadworks. Buses too get stuck in the traffic so why don’t we dig ourselves out of the hole and build safe, quick and direct walking and cycling routes to the hospital – Hastings’ most populous place of work?!
Look out for the Kidical Mass flier and we hope to see you there on the 27th!
ESCC’s Hastings Parking Review opens September 2026 – so now is the time to think of streets, neighbourhoods and routes which could have better organised parking to make way for cycle lanes, bus lanes and safer road crossings. Particularly think of routes to schools. Better organised could mean:
- one side of a road used for parking (diagonal or parallel), the other for two way cycling
- off-street rather than on-street parking where the curb-side is needed for cycling or buses or a widened pavement
- pavement parking preventative posts installed along the curb-edge
- chicanes or build-outs to extend a pavement out into a road to narrow the crossing distance for pedestrians and/or make space for street trees
And so on…
This is the form to fill with your fresh parking ideas:
https://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/parking/parking-reviews/form-parking-controls
Matt Edwards, our HBC (Hastings Borough Council) Environment Officer, has news for us about the Cyclehoop Bike Hangars:
“As a quick update, on the hangars, I’m hoping to go out to procurement next month, the plan is to seek final sign-off from the senior leadership team on the 16th (although I suspect, with yesterday’s decision to pause LGR (Local Government Reorganisation), there may be more pressing matters to discuss). One unwelcome issue to overcome is the requirement for a S115 structure licence for certain hangars not on HBC land. Rather than delay procurement, my plan is to seek the required licenses once agreed by SLT and should any of the proposed locations prove a challenge from a licencing perspective, identify alternative locations.”
And on the Barley Lane to Bale House cycle route:
“On the Country Park Access Path, following the last workshop, the lead ecologist at ESCC, identified someone within her team to support the habitat regulations assessment, I’ve reached out seeking to meet to discuss their review so hoping we should be able to proceed further in coming weeks.”
ESCC LCWIP Review:
We at HUB were alerted by ESCC two years ago that they were about to review the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan and that they would soon be coming to us for our insights. Well – I keep asking and they keep saying they’ll get back to me. The Plan needs to be updated to be more functionally ambitious and less reliant on railway land and pedestrian space. We think the matter is urgent, ESCC think it can wait till their very understaffed cycling and walking team get round to it.
The ESCC Transport and Environment Committee meeting for September 14th in Lewes was cancelled ‘for not having enough urgent business to discuss’. The next one is scheduled for October 19th at 10m at County Hall, Lewes.
We should give our Lead for Transport something to discuss – write to him, Councillor Peter Griffith, at least a week before October 19th at democratic.services@eastsussex.gov.uk. He will be obliged to write back to you before the meeting and, if you can be at the meeting in person, you can ask him a follow-up question.
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