Corporate plan 2020-24

Welcome to the corporate plan for April 2020 to March 2024 - it is your plan because it affects everyone who lives and works in Hastings and St Leonards!

The corporate plan is one of the council’s most important documents. It sets out what we will be doing over the next few years with the money that we have and why we have chosen to focus on what’s in the plan.

Our Vision

“Hastings and St Leonards is a happy, welcoming place with a vibrant, unique culture where everyone has their needs met and is supported and encouraged to live their best lives.”

Our town will:

• Be a ‘green’ town with zero carbon footprint
• Celebrate diversity, individuality and eccentricity
• Recognise and meet people’s needs
• Have warm affordable homes for all
• Ensure good standards of healthcare
• Provide the best possible education
• Have rewarding jobs with a decent wage
• Protect our historic built and natural environment
• Welcome developments that excite and enrich
• Be a hub of creativity and culture

We can’t do this alone so we will continue to work with our partners across all sectors to achieve our vision and promote our town. So that we can work towards our vision, we have priorities which we will be concentrating on:

• Tackling homelessness, poverty and ensuring quality housing
• Keeping Hastings clean and safe
• Minimising our environmental impact
• Making the best use of our land and buildings
• Changing how we work to meet the future
• Delivering responsible regeneration for the town

Everything we do will meet one of these priorities which are chosen because our citizens should live safe, happy, healthy, independent lives with the most vulnerable protected. We want our residents to trust us, they are at the heart of everything we do. We will work hard to ensure Hastings is remains a great place to live, work, visit and do business in. Finally, we will be responsive to the needs of all our citizens, respect cultural identity, provide equality of opportunity and access to the means to live healthy, fulfilling lives.

Since 2010 our funding from the government has gone down by £9.3m and the demand on our services has increased because cuts to other services leave us trying to fill the gaps. We will continue to make a difference to the lives of our citizens, encourage tourism and support existing businesses and attract new ones, and bring investment to the town but we need to be even more focused on investing what we have in the things that will make the biggest impact.

We are determined to continue delivering the best services possible, constantly updating and improving them to meet the needs of our citizens. We have refreshed our corporate plan to set out this determination under new priority headings. It’s a four year plan because we are working on larger projects and programmes now that take a few years to deliver. We are using the resource we have on work that will bring the biggest benefit to the town, its people and businesses. Our plan will be available on our website and updated throughout the year with our progress and performance. We hope you will visit it throughout the year and get in touch if you have any comments or questions.