Observer column 24 July 2025

This column has been written by Cllr Jo Walker, portfolio holder for Environment and Neighbourhood Wellbeing.

Protecting our Environment, Supporting our Communities

As the Portfolio Holder for Environment and Neighbourhood Wellbeing at Hastings Borough Council, I’m proud of the steps we are taking to make Hastings a cleaner, greener, and more connected place to live. At a time when councils across the country are having to do more with less, I believe we are making real progress – focusing on practical solutions that support our residents and protect our precious natural environment.

In 2025, we’re taking bold action to improve how we manage waste and care for our neighbourhoods. That includes preparing for the introduction of food waste collections, using vehicles which run off HVO, and piloting two new barrow-hand schemes. One will be in the town centre, with a focus on Queens Road and surrounding roads, and a second one in Ore, bringing back visible, local street cleaning staff who are known to the community. These roles are about more than just picking up litter – they’re helping to build pride in our public spaces, identify fly-tipping hotspots, and respond more quickly to local issues. If the trial is successful, we’ll explore how we can make these a permanent feature and extended additional resources to other areas in the borough. In addition to this, we are placing out additional bins, supported by a larger collection vehicle, to help cope with increased visitor numbers to our seafront over the summer. The hope is, that bags of waste, which are often left at the side of our usual bins, can be placed in these larger capacity bins, thus avoiding being attacked by seagulls, who often spread litter out across our beach and promenade.

We’re also continuing to support the incredible work of volunteers, community groups and probation service, who are helping to tackle litter, restore habitats, and care for our parks and green spaces. Our partnership with the Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve volunteers, and the Friends of groups across our borough, and many others is a powerful example of what we can achieve when the community and council work side by side. I am particularly pleased that the Friends of Alexandra Park is starting back up, with their AGM on 12th August, at the Alexandra Park Greenhouse.

Environmental wellbeing goes hand in hand with social wellbeing. Cleaner streets, greener spaces, and stronger communities aren’t luxuries – they’re essentials. Through our Neighbourhood Wellbeing work, we’re helping to build safer, healthier, and more connected local areas. That means supporting residents' groups, tackling anti-social behaviour in a joined-up way, and responding quickly to issues raised by the public. Our street cleansing and grounds maintenance teams work incredibly hard across our borough.

Nature is at the heart of our vision for a healthier Hastings. That is why we are designating Hastings Castle and its surrounding green space as a new Local Nature Reserve – the first in many years. This site, steeped in history, is now also recognised for its ecological value. In partnership with Groundwork South, Hastings Borough Council received funding from Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme to help bees by providing extra food sources and nesting habitats. Across the borough volunteers have been planting wildflower areas and native hedgerows, creating bare earth scrapes and woodland edge scalloping. By protecting and enhancing habitats, we’re creating space for wildlife to thrive and for local residents to enjoy. Our cemetery is a haven for wildlife, with a diverse range of habitats, from flat grassed areas to natural woodland, with some areas left to naturalise to support local wildlife and pollinators.

It's a reminder that nature belongs in the heart of our town, not just on its edges. At our most recent full council meeting, I proposed a Nature Emergency Motion, which was voted through by councillors, recognising the need to put nature at the heart of local decision-making and ensuring Hastings remains a place where both people and wildlife can thrive.

We know we’re operating under real constraints – the legacy of austerity, rising service costs, and the climate emergency all place extra pressure on local authorities. But we’re committed to doing everything we can to safeguard the environment and neighbourhood services our residents rely on.

This is about more than tidying up the town. It’s about dignity, fairness, and ensuring everyone in Hastings can take pride in where they live. We’re not afraid to take new approaches or to try things differently – because the future of our town depends on it.

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On Wednesday 16 July, at the council's Full Council meeting, Councillor Jo Walker proposed a motion on nature emergency, this was seconded by Councillor Julia Hilton. The motion was discussed by Councillors and by 19 votes for, to 9 against, Full Council accepted the following motion:

This council notes that:

The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with nearly one in six species at risk of extinction and an average decline of 19% in species abundance since 1970.

Biodiversity loss and climate change are interconnected crises that require urgent, coordinated action at all levels of government.

Hastings is rich in natural heritage, including important woodlands, wetlands, and coastal habitats that provide essential ecosystem services such as flood mitigation, air purification, and carbon sequestration.

Hastings Borough Council has previously demonstrated its commitment to tackling climate change, by declaring more Local Nature Reserves in the Borough, than any neighbouring authority, through the Climate and Nature Bill, and ongoing nature recovery projects such as the Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve Countryside Stewardship Scheme.

This council believes that:

• Recognising the Nature Emergency will reinforce the Council’s commitment to protecting and restoring biodiversity and ensure nature recovery is embedded across all policies. • Proactive investment in nature delivers significant benefits for people, wildlife, and the local economy, often at little or no extra cost.
• The Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS)- a statutory requirement under the Environment Act 2021- provides a framework to set clear, measurable objectives for habitat restoration, tree planting, and nature-based solutions to climate adaptation. Helping to direct funding and action where it will have the greatest impact for biodiversity.
• Council-owned land, including parks, road verges, and woodlands, offer a key opportunity for nature recovery through improved management practices such as reduced mowing, rewilding, and tree planting.
• Collaboration with local landowners, farmers, and land managers is essential to achieve landscape-scale nature recovery, by supporting sustainable land management practices, access to agri-environment schemes, and opportunities for habitat creation and connectivity across public and private land.

In addition, this Council recognises:

• The Hastings Garden Town vision offers a major opportunity to embed nature recovery into regeneration across the town by linking capital investment with local green skills training, job creation, and the long-term stewardship of public spaces through a training-led social enterprise model.

This Council therefore resolves to:

• Declare a Nature Emergency, acknowledging the severity of biodiversity decline and the need for urgent local action.
• Develop a Nature Emergency Action Plan, aligning with the Local Nature Recovery Strategy and setting out measurable targets for biodiversity enhancement.
• Embed nature recovery into all planning and policy decisions, ensuring new developments contribute to habitat restoration, tree canopy expansion, and sustainable drainage.
• Commit to managing at least 30% of council-owned land for nature by 2030, supporting the UK’s 30x30 target.
• Work with local environmental groups, businesses, and communities to enhance nature recovery efforts and secure funding for green infrastructure projects.
• Participate in the Woodland Trust’s Nature Emergency Scorecard initiative—a tool designed to assess and monitor local authority action on biodiversity—using it to track progress, identify gaps, and strengthen efforts to protect and enhance nature locally.
• Integrate the Hastings Garden Town vision and the associated green skills and training programme into wider nature recovery planning and implementation, maximising the long-term impact of capital investment projects for both people and nature.

In order to protect and restore nature in Hastings Borough, this council cannot ignore The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, currently making its way through Parliament. This Bill proposes changes to our planning system which would allow developers to effectively ‘buy’ their way out of site-specific environmental obligations towards protected features and species by paying into a central ‘Nature Restoration Fund’ instead. The Bill also removes the option for Planning Committees to hear applications as triggered by objections from residents (currently, the trigger is set at five or more in Hasting Borough, according to our Constitution).

It is this council’s belief that, in its current form, the Planning & Infrastructure Bill presents a threat to our much-loved and needed local natural habitats in Hastings Borough and greatly reduces the ability for residents to democratically participate in local development planning.

The Wildlife & Countryside Link, supported by CPRE, have proposed amendments for the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, asserting that we should not have to choose between much-needed affordable housing development and nature recovery.

Furthermore, East Sussex County Council have passed a motion to lobby Government to amend the Bill and ensure protections for nature sites across the county.

This council therefore resolves to:

• Write to the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Angela Rayner MP and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage to request substantial amendments to the Bill to improve protection and regeneration of nature, such as those put forward by Wildlife & Countryside Link, and assurance that Hastings Borough’s nature protected sites remain fully protected;
• Write to our local MP asking her to support amendments to the Bill that address the concerns outlined above and, in the event that the Bill remains substantially the same, call on our MP to vote against its adoption on the grounds that it will set back nature recovery whilst also failing to help deliver the affordable or social housing our residents so badly need.

You can view the full agenda for the meeting and the meeting recording on our website.