I was the sole objector

Only one complaint was received after 620 people voted the proposal up and by doing this has set the planned start back by two months.

Well I have to admit here in this paper that it was me.

I hold my hands up I Robert Mucci am the guilty one .

The funny thing is that I didn’t really complain about it as such, what I did say was that the High Street is sick and it has a problem.

The problem is the high pavement in front of the old HBC Museum.

The high pavement was put in to facilitate disabled persons entering the museum (nothing wrong with that).

But the high pavement has caused numerous problems which I note:

1. Traffic jams;

2. Hindered both the fire and ambulance services;

3. Has prohibited the legal parking of vehicles in its vicinity ;

4. People have fallen off it(no injury has yet been reported due to the narrow pavement at the beginning of the High Street); and

5. Carcinogenic omissions pumped into all the shops in the vicinity and polluting the air.

So my objection stemmed from the fact that first this problem should be sorted out.

Well I believe the chief beneficiary after sorting this problem out would be HBC (plus the rest of us of course).

Now, with no high pavement the HBC could quite easily let the old museum as the new occupiers would have the facilities to load and unload in front of the place.

New parking places can them be made available and the problems mentioned above would all be eliminated .

Plus the fact that HBC would receive income from the letting which would serve the town well and help elevate some of its short fall problems

Now this has been mooted on several occasions as was the plans to widen the pavement.

But nobody knew of the new proposal if they weren’t members of the Hasting Old Town Residents’ Association or those too busy to read their newsletter.

So, the closing off of the High Street has come as a complete surprise to almost all the traders in the High Street and a lot of Old Town residents, especially those most affected.

The High St and the Croft, where their roads will be closed off – no entrance from the seafront, no parking in the High Street car park, no loading or unloading in this area for up to two months, two-way traffic and traffic lights between The Croft road entrance and Court House Street .

So it goes on! Shall we all close down our shops?

The first anyone really heard of all this (besides HOTRA members)was after my complaint was turned down in the middle of December and, of course, after that it was too late to complain.

HBC has recently put up the notices in the Old Town to say the work is to be carried out.

These notices, I believe, should have been posted to each and every resident of the Old Town or those affected long ago so any other person could have objected and not just me.

My complaint, I was told, put back the works by two months.

This I was told by the chairman of the HOTRA so that would have meant the works would have started on December 1 and not February 1, as now scheduled, so wouldn’t that have been a great Christmas present to us all a no go High Street?

Just for some cosmetic surgery to the street.

Robert Mucci

High Street

Hastings

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