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John Humphries - Life in Hastings and St Leonards
http://20six.co.uk/johnhumphries
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Regeneration
I lived in Coventry for a while during the early 1980s, working on a project that was designed to provide an alternative to custodial sentencing for young offenders. Frequently this was with young people who spent a lifetime in institutions, some having been in community homes with education (the in-vogue word for borstal at that time), some who had been to the Willy Whitelaw ‘short sharp shock’ centres (physical fitness boot camps that made leaner, fitter young offenders) or just a life time of institutionalisation in kids homes.ffice ffice" />
The project I worked on wasn’t like any of those things, but was designed to build structured lifestyles in the home environment. i.e. ‘Darren will get up at 7am, will go to his YTS, will come home at 5pm, will do the washing up and will go to bed at 9.00pm. In return, Darren won’t go back to youth court and won’t be allowed to slot himself into the next institution rather than deal with the wider world like everyone else has to.’
It was an OK project, and like most other things it worked some of the time, it was cheaper than locking people up and prevented some young people from learning some of the ‘skills’ they tend to pick up in offenders institutions. It did have its failings of course, I never quite worked out why everyone had to go by minibus to some city farm to ‘stroke the goats’ or why some long suffering families were exposed to quite so much convoluted family therapy (though again it worked for some of the people some of the time).
One of the things I really remember about Coventry in the early 1980s - apart from local music like Fun Boy Three and Bannanarama - was quite what an impact the demise of British car manufacturing had on the city. Coventry was very industrial, people went there to work and make things rather than for any other reason. Even when large numbers of people were signing on, people identified themselves as unemployed manufacturing workers / assembly workers, rather than just ' the unemployed’. There was a strong connection with physical surroundings because they built their city.
In other places I have lived this sense has varied. In Reading (where information technology was providing a growth rate second only to Brazil), Norwich (historical trading centre for East Anglia), Cardiff (which was rail and iron and administrative capital) it was never quite as strong.
But I’ve never lived anywhere quite like Hastings, it bloody brilliant in some ways, its anarchic, diverse, frustrating, creative but never dull. But Hastings could also never be described as having been particularly industrial. It never had much of a manufacturing base so it never really had a sizable industrial workforce. Now that we’re at an important stage in regeneration, I’m beginning to realise some of the cultural consequences that has too.
Despite the community spirit, clearly some people see the prospect of rebuilding parts of the town as a really scary thing. I don’t just mean the 'protest lifestylists' (who put their personal desire to remain on the side of the angels before eveything else) or even those preoccupied with all things Georgian and Victorian, but I do mean people in a more general sense. And beyond all the 'preserving the architectural integrity of the town' stuff, I couldn't help wondering how much of this is to do with the lack of connection to the industrial experience. That in Hastings, not enough people connect with the idea that buildings should perform the tasks we want to see happen and thats all part of making something of the town we live in.
Maybe because Hastings has never really been a town of organised industrial labour - more a town of ragged trousered philanthropists - and it didn’t have very much practice in building anything with a purpose for 40 years, people simply don't have the experience in their recent urban local history that shows this can happen.
The danger then, is that we end up with a town which elects to do without health facilities, further education colleges, affordable housing and economic regeneration. and consequently never plot a clear route to future prosperity.
And thats the problem I have with the Liberal Democrats, because the political leadership they ought to be showing just simply isn't there. They have failed to express a clear plan of how they want to achieve future prosperity, and are seeking advancement by feeding off the not in my back yard/ reject change/ keep everything the way it is anxieties. They describe themselves and the 'radical option', but they advocate nothing beyond the present and produce no clear manifesto committments, it all just things they don't like, things they can't deliver and vague beliefs.
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If you can't measure it, it ain't going to happen.
Inspired by http://www.electionmemory.com (produced by someone who is much more web savvy than me) I knocked up a blog to carry all the election manifesto documents in Hastings. This felt like a justified use of time, since the future of both the town and the council really will be determined by what happens at these local elections.
My own preference is of course for Labour to win – partly because they have delivered sucessful regeneration in a way nobody else did before, but also because the Labour manifesto seems to be the only one with clear promises about what will be done in the future. Its easy to forget that party retoric is a big turn-off for most people, they just want to know what you are going to get on with.
Anyway, you can now give your own 2p worth on the different sections of all the manifesto documents at:
http://www.manifestofeedback.blogspot.com/
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Guacamoleville in Hastings?
I’m impressed; someone has started a new blogger site just on the Hastings elections. Perhaps a little unkind to the LibDems in places, but I haven’t spotted anything which is untrue in it yet.
http://www.southcoaster.blogspot.com/
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Now is the time for all good people to get involved
Its difficult to describe that sickening feeling you get when you discover BNP candidates running for election in your town. For me its a bit like the feeling I get when one of my footsteps suddenly goes silent in a popular dog walking area – an encounter with something very unpleasant.
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Today, the local rag published details of candidates for the May elections 2006, including a brief article featuring Nicholas Adrian Paul Prince, former Bexhill Cinema manager and Conservative Party candidate in Braybrooke Ward in June 2004, He clearly has no time for the Tories now and is choosing to champion the cause of the far rightwing BNP instead.
For anyone who cares about democracy, I guess the question in this area is how to make sure the man who has been so 'unlucky' in business and 'unlucky' with the Tories is now equally unlucky with his latest activity. My view is that this is best done by applying a good dose of popular front politics to the situation and ensuring that the most likely candidate to defeat the BNP is given maximum support in the wards where they are running, and for all non-anoraks out there its Labour candidates in both Tressell and Hollington wards.
So whether you offer to work on the phones, on the doorsteps, folding leaflets or addressing envelopes, the important thing for democratic life in both Tressell and Hollington is that as many people as possible link up with the campaigns to make sure the most likely non-BNP candidate wins those wards. History shows us what happens when we leave it to others to beat facism for us!
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Later on I went to the official opening of The Bridge Community Centre, which serves residents in Tressell Ward (see above). First I met someone from Bradford who moved here for work, then I met Joyce, who told me about the history of the Halton area. Joyce moved here from Lancashire in 1963, so her husband could take up a job with the Observer newspaper. In exchange, I told here I moved here from Reading in 1986 to take up a job too. So there we were, all ‘economic migrants’ of a sort, swapping conversations about our experiences of the town.
I also managed to pick up some information from members of the Celebrating Cultural Diversity Network, who are now working out of The Bridge as well. You can find out more about CCDN by emailing them at
directors@celebratingculturaldiversitynetwork.org.
Last of all, I snapped this picture, which was on the exhibition stand about Halton, its a single piece of paper sent to children in the area by the King of England in 1946, I think its a kind of thanks to mark the hardships people had to endure to defeat facism in the middle of the last centuary.
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On The Busses
Just a quick reminder that From April 1st , Labour is meeting the cost of free bus travel for all residents who are either registered disabled or aged over 60 years. In this area it means an entitlement to free travel on busses throughout East & West Sussex, including Brighton and Hove after 9am from Monday to Friday and any time at weekends or on public holidays. You can also travel into Kent and neighbouring counties for free as long as you don not change service.fficeffice" />
To take advantage of the new free travel measure, you need to be part of the Sussex Countycard Concessionary Travel Scheme so find out all the detailis of how to do this by clicking on the following link.
Bus Travel Link
By the way, you can now blog David Milliband (Minister for Communities and Local Government) and give him your views on what the role of the local ward councillor should be.
David Milliband Link
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Phew – whats next?
Last night was my final Cabinet meeting in Hastings as portfolio holder for Housing, Communities, Neighbourhoods, e-Government and Marketing, since I decided about a year ago that I didn’t want to run for election this May.
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I’m still really optimistic about the change which Labour is bringing in my town and looking back, I’m also really proud of the way that Labour has helped our council rise to the political challenge of transforming itself into a progressive force for the well-being of Hastings – something it very definitely wasn’t when I first decided to run for election 11 years ago.
It’s been very fulfilling to have played a small part in that transformation, but now I just fancy doing something a bit different. You see being a full-time Labour Councillor and representing what was the most deprived ward in the South East has been pretty relentless. To some degree that’s because ward work in deprived areas can be complex and intensive, though I wasn’t any stranger to working with deprivation issues before I became a councillor. I worked for several years as a welfare rights worker at a TUC Centre for the Unemployed in Reading, on an alternative to custody project for young people in Coventry, I was a Campaign Co-ordinator for a Homelessness Charity in Hastings and I taught housing rights and provided support to Citizens Advice Bureaux around East Sussex. A lot of those skills have come in handy over the years, but I’ve now decided that simply because I have collected a range of applicable skills, I don’t actually have to spend the rest of my life applying them as a councillor.
Size has taken its toll too, Hastings is a relatively small council (32 people good and true) which means it has a small cabinet, though no less a set of responsibilities than any larger borough /district. Additionally, for the past two years we have been the largest party in a situation of no overall control, so there have been just four Labour Cabinet Councillors covering all the portfolio responsibilities for the whole borough.
There has also been the political management tasks we all have a role in, from developing a unique and much welcomed regeneration programme of considerable scale compared to that of any other district of our size. Also there has been the growing need to sustain partnership structures needed to deliver other jointly funded work which ramps the workload up another couple of notches.
Its also been quite important to get out a bit and keep up with current practice from elsewhere, so I have attempted to play an active part or at least attend structures such as the LGA Urban Commission and the Local Government Information Unit during my time on the council.
And of course life as a councillor isn’t without the time commitment to party politics, reporting back to ward meetings, General Committee, campaign organisation, fundraising events, leafleting, door knocking etc.
Plus the community councillor role, attending neighbourhood forum meetings, events in the ward etc. because in truth there isn’t really any divide between ‘community councillors’ and ‘executive’ as far as real people are concerned. All councillors get elected from communities, so everyone needs to be a community councillor.
The only area I guess I have managed to completely neglect, is that I’ve never been to anything associated with civic cerimonial, not that I'm particularly bothered, since I was never a great supporter of the rather clubby connections all that stuff fosters.
Anyway all that will be behind me soon, so I need to decide on a new direction!
On another theme, I’m gradually chewing through a new book called Building Jerusalem by Tristram Hunt, all about the formative ideas and influences which shaped the creators of Victorian cities - definitely a tenner well spent.
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Young People and Democracy
A really good contribution by our MP to the Westminster Hall debate on Young People and Democracy (I'm not quite sure that theyworkforyou.com have linked to the right Phil Carey though!)
Michael Foster MP
Hastings Young Persons Council
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