Watch this film by Keith Rodway documenting an awareness-raising day for Hastings Greenway and sustainable transport in the town. It features interviews with key players in the campaign to build a safe route for cyclists and walkers from Ore to the town centre.
Join Energise Sussex Coast and other Community Energy groups across East Sussex for presentations and discussions about the potential for renewable and community owned energy. Hastings, being one of the sunniest places in the UK, gives us a real opportunity to create our own energy through solar pv. Come along and join the discussion on Wed 28th June, 7-9.30pm at The Palace, White Rock.
We’re teaming up with the Greenhouse Group in Alexandra Park and the Bohemia Walled Garden to put on some garden events in Hastings during Chelsea Fringe.
At St Leonards Warrior Square Train Station we will be hosting a garden swap shop and planting sessions for adults and children from 11-3pm. Bring your unwanted garden tools, plants, seeds and other garden related stuff. (read more about dos and don’ts for our swap shops).
Throughout the day we will be planting in containers so come along with your old teapots, wellies, tins and ceramic pots, anything waterproof and frost proof. Surprised us!
Also expect some musicians to drop by and play some tunes, share in a pot of tea and you will be able to try some produce, directly from the garden!
http://www.chelseafringe.com/event/a-day-to-clear-your-shed-clear-your-head/
Events
The East Sussex Pension Fund – which is administered by the County Council – currently has an estimated £172m invested in fossil fuels. In April, Hastings Borough Council – a member of the Pension Fund – passed a unanimous cross-party motion, calling on East Sussex County Council to divest the East Sussex Pension Fund from fossil fuels.
Now members of the East Sussex Pension Fund can use the new web tool (available online at http://tinyurl.com/divesteastsussex) to contact the chair of the East Sussex Pension Committee, Richard Stogdon, and urge the Committee to divest the Fund from fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas).
Read more at Fossil Free Hastings.
Hastings Supports Refugees is in the process of mounting a very rapid campaign to try to help the nearly 400 Calais children who already have legal right to be to be brought immediately to the UK. Below are the details of the campaign.
Access the online petition here.
Give refugee children safe passage now.
Children and unaccompanied minors in the Calais jungle are suffering appalling conditions. Many are being abused and have mental health problems. In recent months many have been injured and some killed trying to reach the UK.
The jungle is due to be demolished by 31 October. The children must be brought to safety before then.
Their suffering is needless – they have the legal right to be in the UK.
Your government has already given legal entitlement to nearly 400 young people to come to the uk, and they are therefore now our responsibility. Refusing to welcome them is criminal negligence.
We call on you, Amber Rudd, to take urgent action. Do whatever is in your power to honour the legal ruling now and enable their immediate safe passage to the UK.
The home office has the details of 400 legally entitled children and young people from the Calais camp but has processed only a small number.
They have a legal right to come here. Hastings and Rye say: let them in now.
https://www.facebook.com/hastingssupportsrefugees/
Bohemia Walled Garden have produced the first edition of a Heritage Lottery Funded booklet. You can download it from their website. The final edition will be done during 2017 when the other deliverables have been completed.
They do have a few printed copies available and if you would like one of these, please email via their “Contact us” page.
We’ve recently discovered a new place on Kings Road, St Leonards. Bargain are running a community swap shop of art, goods & services at Bargain, until late September (potentially longer).
Open Saturdays 10am–5pm + by appointment
More info: www.bargainstudio.co.uk
Current offers: instagram.com/bargainstudio
Could be a way to find a new home for unwanted items/materials but you can exchange pretty much anything – services & skills included.
Happy swapping!
Bohemia Walled Garden is having a Summer Garden Party on Sunday 3rd July, 10am-4pm.
ADMISSION FREE! Includes music, tea and cakes, tombolas, plant sale and children’s activities.
It’s a beautiful community garden/allotment hidden inside Summerfields Wood.
The association recently had success with a Heritage Lottery Application. Read details of the project plan on Heritage Lottery Fund page
Down at the community garden we’ve uncovered a wealth of plants with culinary and medicinal uses.
Here’s Naomi, a garden volunteer, trying out the Rosy Garlic. The bulbils are like miniature Red Onions
and are wrapped in a thin papery skin that peels away. It’s not uncommon to find it growing in the wild on the south coast, in rough or cultivated ground.
Our volunteers have taken some home to put in a vase or have a try at cooking with it.
We’re compiling a page of all the wild plants we’ve discovered so far and what you might do with them.
Bus lanes on the A259 between Glyne Gap and Bexhill Road will now not be completed until a year after the opening of the Bexhill to Hastings Link Road (BHLR), Campaign for Better Transport – East Sussex has learned.
Speaking for the group, Derrick Coffee said:
‘Originally intended to begin construction in February, East Sussex County Council (ESCC) has revealed that the start date for construction will now be next October. This is bad news for the two towns as delay is likely to lead to:
The bus lanes, with better bus services, were promised in 2004 and were a condition of the Department for Transport (DfT) funding approval in 2012. That approval – surprising in the light of the DfT giving the BHLR a ‘poor to medium’ value for money rating – looks pretty disappointing now as the ability of an improved bus service to ‘lock in’ any traffic reduction benefits will be prevented: the bus lanes were a key part of that plan and, as the traffic grows back, their delayed operation makes the BHLR look even poorer value for the vast sum of taxpayers’ money spent so far. That’s around £130m.
‘The removal two years ago from transport plans of the long proposed new railway station at Glyne Gap by Rother District and ESCC is a further incentive to ‘carry on driving’ and a blow to any vision of a good mix of high quality sustainable transport for the residents, workers, tourists, young people and students of Hastings. The inevitable increase in traffic is also bad news for those for whom a vehicle is essential’, concluded Derrick Coffee.
Image: © Copyright Oast House Archive and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
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