Observer column 7 August 2025

You might have seen that we are asking for your views on housing in Hastings. One of the top priorities in our new Corporate Plan 2025-2030 is tackling the housing crisis here. Officers have spent the last few months talking to residents, landlords, and working with our steering group to create our draft Housing Strategy. I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed, from residents to the steering group, it’s been a huge piece of work. 

It has been drafted following these conversations and feedback, and it focuses on five priorities to achieve the aim of making Hastings a place where everyone has a safe, settled and affordable home. 

The five priorities are: 

We have set out what we think we need to do, what we need to do alongside our partners and what we need Government do to help achieve our priorities. Once we have heard from you, we will finalise the strategy and include a detailed action plan holding us to account on dates and targets.  

We want to know what you think about the strategy wherever you live – if you’re a homeowner or you rent off a private landlord, if you are a landlord, or if you live in a housing association property. We want to improve housing for everyone, so we want feedback from as many people as possible. 

Our initial conversations showed that building more affordable housing, enforcing housing standards and regulating landlords, repurposing empty buildings and commercial spaces, limiting Airbnbs and second homes, are among the top things residents want us to focus on. 

We know that part of the reason for the crisis is increasing prices. Private rents rose to an average of £979 in February 2025, an increase of 6.2% since February 2024. Local Housing Allowance is often 40% lower than average rent. 

Please read the draft strategy; the full version and a summary are both available on our website, and if you want a hard copy you can pop into reception at Muriel Matters House during office hours. There’s a short online survey to complete, depending on which strategy you have read, and if you have other comments to make you can email or write to us with your thoughts. All the information is online: Draft Housing Strategy 2025-2030. Make sure you’ve had your say by Sunday 31 August. 

On a completely separate note, I am also lead councillor for licensing. We are doing our three-yearly review of the cumulative impact assessment part of our licensing policy. This aims to manage the number or density of licensed premises in specific areas where such concentration may undermine our licensing objectives. Check our website and social media to find out more.