Observer Column 4 September 2025

Hastings Borough Council’s Local Plan is a strategic vision for housing, growth and new development in the Borough spanning 2023-2041, guided by the Government’s National Planning and Policy Framework (NPPF). It is among the most important and complex policy documents we produce.  

Hastings is already highly urbanised, with an unusually rich architectural legacy. Available development space is further constrained by the Channel, Country Park and High Weald. These factors have historically limited the council’s ability to build the 489 dwellings per year that the previous NPPF required, constructing instead an average of 155 per year. 

The current government is now committed to a high-profile national house-building policy that foresees the construction of 1.5 million homes across the country in this Parliament. It has issued an amended NPPF to reflect this ambition, incorporating a formula which requires Hastings to build an average of 710 homes per year – a 45% increase on the previous figure, and equating to some 12,780 homes in an 18-year period.  

This is a notably challenging target, and one that inevitably prompts concern. Even setting aside pressing considerations such as environmental impact – keenly felt by any Green administration – additional weight on stretched service provision, potential traffic and flooding issues and the broader implications of thousands more homes in Hastings over an 18-year period, we have to calculate whether this revised target is feasible, given the difficulty in meeting the original figure. Present studies suggest we can actually deliver some 2,800 of the 12,780 target. 

We are, however, required to ‘plan positively’; so, these arguments will need carefully to be made to Government, supported by a robust evidence-base and thorough public consultation, if the Local Plan is to pass inspection. Given these requirements, the key changes made to the NPPF and the time elapsed since the last consultation (Regulation 18, carried out in 2021) - we decided to take the step of publicly consulting again, in a so-called ‘Regulation 18B’, slated for Dec 2025 - Jan 2026, with the aim of submitting our Local Plan to Government at the end of 2026. 

We should note that this refined process will not diminish strong government pressure to build more houses; or readily allow us the chance to remove controversial sites from the existing plan. We hope, instead, to build sensibly, sustainably and in an environmentally-conscious way.  

Since the disastrous 2024 May Day weekend water outage, and a wearying series of flooding and sewage incidents, we have sought to obtain prompt and adequate redress from Southern Water for individual residents; compensation for the town’s businesses; and the review of long-standing individual cases. We want, above all, a durable, mature, results-based relationship with our water company, in which strategic investment work is accelerated to diminish the chances of future failure; water quality is maintained at ‘excellent’ at our two bathing beaches; and SW invests to support Hastings. We believe we make steady progress on these points.