HUB News - July 2026

HUB met on July 2nd at White Rock and were very glad to have with us - Matt Edwards, Hastings Borough Council’s Climate Change officer and Becca Horn, a member of the Council’s Cabinet, as well as us ordinary cycling members. The meeting revealed several reasons to be hopeful and actions we can take.

Matt, on behalf of HBC, has found a significant unmet need for secure cycle storage in town and is acquiring 6 Cyclehoop hangers for HBC which will be located this autumn in the south of the Borough along the seafront from opposite London Road to Old Town including Pelham car park area and Wellington Square. Exact positions tbc. The price for storing a bike will be £72p/a or short stay at £0.70 for 10 hours. Hooray!! Thank you Matt!

Matt has also begun the long winded process of making the Barley Lane to Bale House 3/4 mile contour path fit for walking, wheeling and cycling. But it’s not going to be easy - the route is near an SSSI and will need to start with an environmental assessment. As HBC does not have the relevant expertise in-house, Matt has reached out to ESCC’s ecologist for collaboration. 🤞 There is huge enthusiasm and years of waiting in the hearts of HUB members for this project. The existing path can’t be cycled and is impassably muddy in winter for walkers so almost everyone visiting the Bale House goes by car - pretty silly for a straw-built eco-centre.

Kidical Mass rides were out in Hastings on the last Saturday of the month all last summer. The route looped around Alexandra Park - up St. Helens Road, along Dordrecht, down Lower Park Road and Queens Road to the seafront and finished at Warrior Square. Brave very young people peddled it heroically alongside all sorts of bikes including cargo bikes carrying their siblings. But the number of riders, between 25 and 50, never quite felt enough to fill the road and so not 100% safe. This year we are saving it all up to do just one MASSIVE ride on Sunday 25th September. Meet just inside the Bethune Way entrance to the Park for an 10am start. The message for the riders and motorists of Hastings and for our transport authority - Hastings needs a safe cycling network! Please join us!

Cllr. Becca Horn would like Queens Road to be a pedestrian-friendly road so the shops can thrive and it can regain its function as a social street. She is in conversation with Morrisons about setting up a community garden along their Queens Road frontage. It will be lovely to see greenery in Queens Road but making it bus, bike and access/deliveries-only would be an even greater prize.

Becca and Anna will work towards a weekend car-free event in September 2027 involving a TTRO - Temporary Traffic Regulation Order - organised by the transport authority. Queens Road bus drivers would love it - congestion-free at last! Wish us luck and watch this space.

HUB members are submitting some bids for Pride in Place funding this summer - deadline August 31st - decisions this October. The fund is not large and is spread over 10 years and a lot people and organisations are bidding. Nonetheless, HUB members will seek funds for professional feasibility studies and designs for walking and cycling routes: town to hospital, West St. Leonards schools to WSL station and the sea and Ore to Ore station via Speckled Wood with possible match funding from Sports England. There will also be a bid for bike racks and planters to keep bikes safe and cars off the pavement on America Ground. Good luck everyone!

For two years East Sussex’s cyclingandwalking team have been saying they are about to launch consultations for an update of Hastings’s LCWIP - Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan. We’re still waiting but, in the meantime, Government has published new policy and committed £4.5 billion for active travel infrastructure.

The National Strategy:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69de12cb961ff0ba6bff8de9/dft-better-connected-a-strategy-for-integrated-transport.pdf

£4.5 billion to be spent:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/developing-the-third-cycling-and-walking-investment-strategy-cwis3/the-third-cycling-and-walking-investment-strategy-cwis3

ESCC’s Local Transport Plan 4 for safer, healthier and more active travel:

https://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/roads-transport/transport-planning/local-transport-plan/local-transport-plan-4/ltp4-strategy/6-safer-healthier-and-more-active-travel

But the new Lead Member for Transport and Environment, Cllr. Peter Griffiths, has no plans to bring in any more expertise for active travel planning. He’s sticking to the old in-house team. Without plans and a realistic chance of seeing them through, East Sussex can’t be allocated any funds. The current team don’t have the necessary expertise. So the danger is that investment and transformation will happen elsewhere, not here.

A Sussex and Brighton Mayor who knows what cycling and walking infrastructure delivers to health, wealth and happiness would be handy - to bring our our County councillors into the light.