Frequently Asked Questions

Please note that this page is more than six months old and the information it contains may be out of date. Please contact towndeal@hastings.co.uk if you have any specific questions. We are currently working on updating this page.

We’ve put together answers to Frequently Asked Questions regarding Hastings Town Deal. Please click on the headings of each category to reveal the FAQs and responses.

In Autumn 2019 the government announced that Hastings, along with 100 other towns across the UK had been selected to bid for a share of £3.6 billion from the Towns Fund in order to support the regeneration of the town centre and gateway sites over the next decade.

A board, (made up of businesses, business and community representative organisations, the public sector and other partners, committed to improving the town), has been responsible for leading the development of our Investment Plan and they will deliver it over the next six years, with Hastings Council having overall responsibility.

This plan was submitted to the government on Friday 29 January and we are delighted to say that government offered us £24.3m of funding in early June 2021 in what’s called our ‘Town Deal’ or ‘Heads of Terms’. and details where we want to spend the £28.2m that we have bid for and now we wait for government to assess the plan and see how much of that figure is allocated to us in what’s called the ‘Town Deal’.

Now the allocation of funding has been offered, we will be working over the next 2 months to submit to government our acceptance of this offer. This will set out how the funding will be split amongst those projects that requested funding in the Town Investment Plan. Once the allocation of funding has been agreed the board and council can start working with project leads, stakeholders and the community to shape and develop the details of the projects to bring them to life through business cases over the next 12 months.

The business cases will then need approval before our funding allocation is secured and we are able to start work on the projects to deliver jobs, homes, skills, regeneration and actions to reduce our carbon emissions.

As it is a six-year programme projects will come to life at different points during this period, those described as ‘shovel ready’ will start coming to life first.

This is a great opportunity to bring vital investment into the town and it won’t be able to tackle every issue but it will be able to make positive impacts in the community and provide a strategy to look at what else is needed to fully achieve our vision.

You can find out more about the impacts the investment plan will have here

We also need your help.

We are at the very early stages of process and we need to hear your thoughts on the future of Hastings as well helping us to develop detailed plans for the projects. The more people get behind the deal, the more likely we can secure the best deal possible for Hastings.

You can head to the Hastings Town Deal social media channels to join in our conversations

You can download the document here

There was an open Expression of Interest process in the summer 2020, where anyone could submit an idea. 155 Expression of interest forms were received, these ranged from general comments about the town, to an idea, to more worked up and developed projects.

These Projects and ideas were assessed using the Town Deal project prioritisation and assessment process, which has been set out by government to make sure that projects fit with the requirements for the Town Deal programme.

The guidance from government and the Towns Hub indicated a ‘strong preference’ for projects to be focussed in the main town centre (Hastings town centre) and key gateway employment sites (industrial estates). This recognises the extreme challenges town centres, in particular are facing at the moment. Any projects outside of the town centre or key gateway employment sites (known as ‘out of town’ sites) may be rejected or subject to much increased assessment and scrutiny. The investment plan will have to explain by target areas have been chosen and how they will benefit other parts of the town, including the town centre.

The process was carried out by a subgroup of the Town Deal Board (project prioritisation working group – the PPWG), Town Deal project team officers and an independent expert assessor (Genecon). All those that submitted an idea through the expression of interest form received feedback on their ideas or projects or were requested to submit further information as part of the next stage of the project prioritisation process.

All projects were assessed against:

Treasury Green Book

Intervention framework

Local criteria (which will also inform what we measure against) Hastings criteria informed by:

SWOT, Vision and Theory of change undertaken by board
Evidence and research – Hastings & Rother Regeneration review, Local Industrial Strategy and Coastal Communities Prospectus
Local plan survey
Previous consultation and project bids (across partners)
COVID 19 specific recovery documents and discussions
EOIs and ideas submitted via webpage, Accelerated fund proposals, Active transport proposals, Facebook comments, emails, phone calls and My Town website (government website)
Towns Hub (government appointed expert support for Town Deal towns) and Genecon (independent assessors) feedback and input
155 Expression of Interest forms were received, of which 41 were assessed and grouped into 23 projects by independent assessors, Genecon and the Town Deal board project prioritisation working group to move onto the next stage in the assessment process. Following that stage, seven grouped projects were recommended and approved by the board on the 14 December for investment through the Town Investment Plan.

More information on the Project Prioritisation Process can be found in the Town Deal Board minutes and papers.

There were 155 Expression of interest forms received, these ranged from general comments about the town, to an idea, to more worked up and developed projects, below shows these EOIs via the type and location.

Education provision ideas and EOIs – Town centre, Baird Ward and Ore Valley = 4 Active transport/Public realm ideas – across borough and outside borough = 70 Revenue ideas and other EOIs – across borough = 26 Town centre sites and building use ideas = 40 St Leonards and west of borough ideas and EOIs = 10 Employment and industrial site ideas / EOIs = 5

Officers from our programme team have produced this presentation which tells the story of the Town Deal programme from start to where we are now (July 2021). You can watch it here

The Towns Fund is a £3.6 billion funding pot that the government set up to level up towns and cities around the country like Hastings. Our town was one of 101 towns and cities selected to develop proposals for our Town Deal. Our Town Deal is the agreement signed by government when our Town Investment Plan (submitted on 29 January 2021) has been approved by government.

All Town Deals need to have an accountable body, which has to be the local council for that town, in Hastings that is Hastings Borough Council. Hastings Council is responsible for signing the Town Deal with the town deal board and government and is the responsible body for the fund to flow through, as well overseeing the governance of the Town deal board.

A 'Town Deal Board' was established in January 2020 in accordance with the guidance detailed in the Town Fund prospectus. It includes businesses, business community representative organisations, a youth council representative, public sector and other partners committed to improving the town. The Board will lead support, endorse and champion the development and delivery of the Town Investment Plan over the next six years, alongside the council as lead partner, with overall responsibility and management for the programme.

Apsolutely not, although the open call for Expression of Interests for project ideas to be included in the Town Investment Plan has now closed, the board is keen to hear from you. You can get involved in developing and shaping the projects that will be delivered through the Investment Plan and beyond. There will be plenty of opportunities over the next six years of the Town Deal programme to have your say and help bring these projects to life.

We also need your support because the more people that get behind our bid the more likely it is that we will be able to secure the funding needed to deliver all our projects in our Town Deal Programme. Please follow us on our social media channels to show your support for Hastings.

We are still very much at the start of the Town Deal programme, with many of the town deal projects requesting funding at an expression of interest stage (concept ideas). So far we have been through a ‘past’ and ‘present’ engagement process to develop the Town Investment Plan. We have done this in two ways:

Through the Town Deal Board; this includes businesses, business representative organisations as well as community representative organisations and other partners committing to improving Hastings and representing the views of different parts of the community.

The board, with support from the council have developed a stakeholder engagement plan as part of the Town Investment Plan. This shows how past engagement that has already happened through other programmes and projects across the town, and present engagement during 2020 helped develop our Town Investment Plan.

We are now entering the ‘future’ part of the engagement plan, which will happen over the next 6 years of the Town Deal programme. This will include ‘online’ ways of engaging (such as through social media and blog) as well as ‘offline’ like open events (where covid safe) and leaflets. The community will have the opportunity to help shape, influence and develop some of the detail in the projects requesting funding from government through the investment plan, as well as any other ‘pipeline’ projects that develop over the next 6 years as well.