When coastal communities hit the national news, it's usually a delight to read, as those of us who live by the sea have plenty to boast about. In a recent article on BBC News, the Beeb even quoted our local MP. However, Mrs Hart appeared to have nothing to say about her own coastal constituency, Rye and Hastings...
The article focussed upon a new report written by the Sussex Community Foundation entitled, tellingly, “Communities on the Edge”. The report warns that levelling up's focus on regions will result in the "massive challenges" faced by some smaller, remote parts of the country being "hidden" and likely missed by the government.
Mrs Hart is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Coastal Communities, so she knows the problems faced by people living in Rye and Hastings. In Rye, the veneer of affluence masks a deeper truth. Yes, some people can afford to pay £17 for a gin and tonic in the High Street, but over 30% of the kids at Rye College are eligible for free school meals. Astonishingly, this rises to 50% and even 62% in some schools in Hastings. I'll spare Mrs Hart's blushes and not mention her voting record on free meals during school holidays, but I do feel duty bound to say, after 13 years of Conservative government, our kids are being shamefully let down. The fact that in the 21st century, in the fifth richest country on earth, 27% of British children are living in poverty really beggars belief (Joseph Rowntree Foundation).
On a slightly brighter note, Rother District Council has recently been awarded £19m for community, creativity and skills in Bexhill. It's no panacea, but offers some positive counterpoint – and, no, it's not all going to the De La Warr, John! However, the report poses an important question in this regard: why must councils, with financial circumstances sometimes as parlous as their hard-pressed constituents, have to compete with other regions for desperately-needed funding? I'm reminded of those news features of humanitarian aid being dropped from UN helicopters into the starving melee... Melodramatic? I'm not so sure it is. Hastings, one of the government's priority areas for levelling up, with some of the most deprived wards in the south east, couldn't even afford to bid.
The BBC article discusses reform of the government's bidding criteria, and talks of the transition to green energy as a means of providing well-paid jobs. Hybrid and home working are also suggested as ways of enabling young people to remain in their localities, but education, vocational training and affordable homes would be a crucial factor in that equation. Seasonal workforces are also referenced by the report, and they're of particular importance to our farming communities, who desperately need vets, pickers and abattoir workers – not to mention abattoirs...
Stories like those revealed in "Communities on the Edge" reveal a scene of widening inequality and deepening poverty, locally and nationally. The additional peril I foresee is a growing disillusion with institutions and politicians, who do not seem to be listening to us. This dissatisfaction is leading to polarisation, ideological entrenchment, conspiracy, and the continued corrosion of consensus and social harmony. But it's all very well endlessly bemoaning the problems we're all painfully aware of... The question is, what's to be done? Well, I suspect we can all agree, we need things to change.
