Council calls for action on Southern Water

After the leaks throughout the last year along the main sewer at Bulverhythe, councillors agreed at a meeting of Full Council last night to seek more regular public meetings with Southern Water and that the water company should return to public ownership.
Councillors also voted to work to phase out the use of fossil fuels.
This motion received cross-party support and called on local, national and international leaders to do the same, and encouraged other districts and boroughs within East Sussex to follow our actions. The council will also continue to call on East Sussex County Council to stop investing the pension funds in fossil fuels.
The final motion, agreed unanimously, proposed that an Equalities Working Group should be set up under Overview and Scrutiny, to monitor how the council is fulfilling its duties to all residents. The working group would be open to all elected councillors.
The council also agreed the budget report, an update on the budget, which was set in February. The report makes several recommendations, including removing the Harold Place project from the capital programme and including the site in the Town Deal Garden Town project; increasing the budgets for some capital projects, and a mid-year budget review to potentially increase fees and charges, reduce expenditure and sell assets.
A motion on declaring a Housing Emergency was deferred to the next meeting for further legal advice.
The report on updating the park byelaws was withdrawn from the meeting because the byelaws that were approved by the Secretary of State were not the same as the byelaws that were attached to the report discussed by Cabinet in June. A new report with the park byelaws approved by the Secretary of State will now be referred back to the next available Cabinet meeting for discussion before they can be recommended for approval by Full Council.
Cllr Paul Barnett (Lab), leader of the council, said: "This evening's meeting showed that all parties in Hastings can and will work together for the good of our residents. Of course, we don't agree on everything, and tonight Labour and Greens voted to return Southern Water to public ownership for example while the Conservatives opposed this. But on finance and equalities we all agreed to work together and I think that augers well for Hastings for the next year."

The meeting is available to watch online.