Protestival in St Leonards, East Sussex on July 13 2025

SussexWorld

The event was part protest, part community event at The Old Bathing Pool Site. Full story: https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/protest-against-st-leonards-bathing-pool-site-development-plans-to-be-held-5201767

Transcript

00:00A group of us, obviously we've got concerns about the developers building on land such

00:07as this and there's lots of little parcels of land that they're moving in on in Hastings

00:11and St Leonard's. We've come together, we're trying to get involved with the community,

00:16we don't think there's enough transparency from the council on what's happening and we

00:20want to say that we deserve to have a right to say what gets built and where because a

00:25seafront location is not going to be affordable housing so it's not it's not ticking any boxes

00:30there and this is a prime site to build the tourist industry and to give our residents something to

00:36come down to the beach and enjoy. We came up with the idea of holding a protestival,

00:41it's part protest but you know we want to engage the community so there's a bit of a festival vibe

00:45about it. We've got Speaker's Corner from the organisations that we've got here today to

00:50explain some of the problems that they're all facing be it on different sites where they've

00:54got Sandrock Benz, you know there's lots of people concerned about the impact on the transport

01:00down here if they build 150 houses so yeah so that's why we're trying to get the community aware

01:08of what's going on we don't think that's out in the public realm at the moment and show show the

01:13council what great space it could be for for leisure and inviting tourists down. We hope to by having more

01:20people involved we hope the council will sit and listen to us and engage properly on what the

01:26the residents want what the community wants down here and be able to work together so that we agree

01:31with the the plans and the developers aren't the ones that are cracking the whip and it feels like the

01:36council have no power over them so yeah people behind the the council and and council listening to

01:42us in the first place. This event is bringing together people with concerns across the town so we're on

01:48one site that is under threat one public green space that will be no more once the developers have

01:54built all over it but it's not the only size and it's not the only issue you know the the developers

02:00right across town they have been building without any interest in actually meeting the needs that's in

02:08the town for affordable social housing so we've got Station Plaza at the moment that was a development

02:14which is meant to have affordable homes halfway through they dumped those because they said it

02:19wasn't viable we have new developments getting planning permission like the um Gensing Manor where

02:25they didn't even have to provide any affordable homes or on Braybrook Road this is time and time again

02:31there's a development up in archery gardens which originally as a huge development over 100 properties

02:37originally it was meant to be 56 percent of those homes were meant to be affordable homes once the developers got

02:43planning permission they they slashed it to less than half of us we can't build our way out of a climate

02:50and nature crisis this whole area is predicted to flood annually by 2050 so building more types of

02:58buildings here is not going to be a good thing in terms of the carbon emissions from the actual building

03:02which is probably going to go to waste because nobody wants to buy an apartment by the seaside if they

03:08can't get insurance for it or if it's starting to flood every year sometimes with sewage we've also

03:13got an ecological crisis which means nature is in decline so fast we can barely keep up with it 67

03:21less insects since i was a child and i've got grandchildren under six and i want them all to be

03:27able to come and say we fought for these spaces in Hastings and they're still here for the next generation

03:38so

03:43so

03:45so

03:47so

03:49so

03:51so

03:53so

03:55so

03:57so

Category

Transcript

Recommended