Hastings Independent Column

 This is the first in a series of  fortnightly columns for the Hastings Independent. Some will be based on those in the Courier.

Pulling up the Drawbridge

By Kent Barker

There are not, I concede, many reasons to leave Hastings. Pretty much all life is here.  And the town has an added aura summed up by a small piece of graffiti on a George Street hoarding: “Keep Hastings Weird”.  What made it more real was that it was a near illiterate scrawl in marker pen with no concessions whatever to the elegant street art of sprayed 3D letters or Banksy type stencils.

Anyway, should you happen to venture beyond the town boundaries you will doubtless discover the rural villages and hamlets of Kent and Sussex, one of which I inhabit.  And this column is intended to provide a few snapshots of country life from someone who loves the countryside but finds himself increasingly out of kilter with many who live there.

From a few thousand feet up you get a real perspective on the topography of southern England.  I was in a glider soaring over the Downs around Ringmer, and could see across to the Isle of Wight in one direction and back to Dungeness in the other.  And I realised how much of Britain is NOT built on.  Sure, in the car you can’t go far without encountering habitation.  But from aloft, fields seem to stretch unsullied to the horizon.

Yet those living in the country appear to feel it their bounden duty to stop anyone else doing so.  If ever there was a case of pulling up the drawbridge this is it.  A space in our village was sold recently. It used to be the pub car park.  But the Royal Oak was replaced by new houses a decade ago.  Now it’s the newcomers who are most vociferous in seeking to prevent further building.  Letters were sent round raising the spectre of developers moving in or, horror of horrors, travellers taking it over – though without evidence that any planned to do so.

The fact is that there is a housing crisis in the South East. Councils have to find building plots, and they should not be restricted to towns. Villages like ours must share the burden.  In my lifetime two shops and the pub have closed.  Surely with a few more houses locally we might be able to keep these important rural businesses going. And the old pub car park seems an ideal site. Though I’d better not be heard to say so for fear of ostracisation.