WWW.HEARTOFHASTINGS.ORG.UK - www.facebook.

com/HofHOreValley/

P
July 2018

WORD U Ore Valley

A newsletter from the Heart of Hastings Bottom Up Development (BUD) Team
Who are The Heart of
Hastings CLT?
The Heart of Hastings Community Land Trust has
been established by local residents and have plans to
regenerate the long derelict site of the old Broomgrove
Power Station. Their plans see the power station
being developed by members of the local community
to accommodate 77 genuinely affordable family
homes, built using sustainable Modern Methods of
Construction. In doing so they also hope to create long
term jobs for local people with barriers to employment.

Who are The BUD Team?
The Bottom Up Development (BUD) Team is a broad
group of local residents, some part time staff, but
mostly volunteers who are all inspired by the vision of
creating a new way of designing, building and living
in modern sustainable housing. The BUD look after a
whole host of tasks, from planning and delivering events
onsite to general maintenance and upkeep, ecological
monitoring to tea-making. The BUD meet weekly
(12noon on Wednesays, new friends always welcome!)
to discuss goings on and make decisions. The kettle’s
L-R: Dan, Darren, Rossana, Tania, Jenny, Sam, Shelley and Bob visiting the national CLT conference in London last year always on and there’s always a friendly face for a chat.

Word on the street - We’ve been out and “The council are
about meeting people on fellows, upper broomgrove and clement “More stuff
hill road to talk about housing, our project and anything else always on at me to look
for kids to do so
that comes up. this is some of what they said after my garden, but they
they’re not playing
haven’t cut the verges
“It’s lovey and quiet and I know all my in the roads”
round here for ages”
neighbours - I’ve lived here since it was built”

e!
‘
i ld s id Jul 28th (12.30) Our local eco-expert Anton Hack is carrying out
ew
s
on la n d Aug 11th (10am)
Nature Walks in the Ore Valley aimed at under 16s,
but popular with all ages.
th

Aug 25th
t d
a wa l k o n

All sessions are entirely FREE OF CHARGE with

n o
A WoWalks
Sep 8th
Sep 22nd or
23rd
refreshments.

For full details and to RSVP please visit

e

www.heartofhastings.org.uk/woodwalks
Ta k

Oct 6th or email anton@heartofhastings.org.uk

OUR SITE IS OPEN FOR YOU TO COME AND VISIT US
Monday – 10 to 4pm, Wednesday – 12 to 4pm
Friday – 12 to 4pm, Saturday – 10 to 4pm
No unsupervised children on Mondays or Fridays Well
behaved dogs on leads always welcome
WWW.HEARTOFHASTINGS.ORG.UK - www.facebook.com/HofHOreValley/

P
July 2018

WORD U Ore Valley

A newsletter from the Heart of Hastings Bottom Up Development (BUD) Team

From left to right: Anton, Jenny, Jason, Jess, Darren, Jake (the dog), James, Bob, Dom, Chris and Dan

progress
to two sheds which we’ve
repurposed into meeting
and tea-drinking space,
we’ve also been lent a solar
that has put off private developers for a long
while) and have been having not much luck
getting an answer.
We were hoping to begin in April

report
We’ve been on the site now for nearly two years
and in that time we’ve made great advances.
We’ve knocked on more than 2000 doors, had
conversations with over 500 people across the
valley and built up a network of over 2000
supporters from across Hastings and the world!
We’ve also hosted some lovely parties
(sorry if our noise ever disturbed you) and
made the site a welcoming, green and pleasant
space for people to visit (come along and check
out Bob’s Poly-tunnel of wonders!), we’ve
received donations ranging from a few pence
gratefully received in exchange for a cup of tea,
generator in order to power our electrics onsite
using clean renewable energy, the generosity of
our supporters has been astounding.
We’ve been doing all of this because
we were given a licence to operate on the site,
helped by Hastings Borough Council with the
intention of allowing us to develop our plans
for “community-led housing”. With that in mind
we’ve done everything we could to bring in as
many local people as possible and we’re always
looking for new faces to join us.
Recently we’ve been asking for news
on when we might expect to be granted full
ownership of the site (it’s worth less than nothing
owing to various development challenges, a fact
2019, and the first phase of the project would be
to recruit up to 100 local people who are unable
to find work, to offer them intensive training
in Modern Methods of Construction and to then
work with them and our design partners and lead
contractors ZED Factory (www.zedfactory.com) to
create jobs and begin building. If we don’t get
good news from the council before October we
just won’t haver time to plan it all.
If you believe in giving people a
chance and that affordable, community-led,
environmentally sustainable housing is the
future, if you support us and want to see the
underdog succeed for once please come and join
us on site and show your support.

UPCOMING EVENTS
For more information or to send us your
comments/suggestions
sam@heartofhastings.org.uk
OR
Our Annual General Meeting Heart of Hastings CLT
Date: 28th July - 11-12am Rock House
About: this will be a chance for our shareholders to vote in or out our trustees, to hear 49-51 Cambridge Road
about the work we’ve achieved so far and to find out what the CLT has in store for Hastings TN34 1DT
2018/19
Big Up Ore Valley!
Date: 28th July - 12-7PM
About: This is a family fun day being organised by Big Local North East Hastings,
there will be bouncy castles, live music, free food (when it’s gone it’s gone) and a
party atmosphere all day long.