Bus Stop

In yet more evidence of cuts to public services under the guise of ‘austerity’, East Sussex County Council (ESCC) is seeking to reduce its subsidy for bus services from £2.9m to £700,000 by April 2015. The proposals will see fares rise by 30%, services reduced and people in rural communities increasingly isolated. Some routes will change from a daily service to twice-weekly, and Sunday services will be cut.

As usual with ESCC, this latest proposal will particularly affect the most vulnerable: teenagers, young parents, those with disabilities, senior citizens and those on low wages for whom private transport is unaffordable. At a time when the council has ploughed £56m into the building of the Bexhill Link Road, such an attack on essential services for ordinary people seems inexplicable. But if you go to the ESCC website and take a look at the councillors in the key positions of power, you will see why. Middle-aged, male and well-fed, they could not be less in touch with the man on the Clapham omnibus if they came from Jupiter. It is, of course, East Sussex that is projected to soon have the first town – Uckfield - where nobody under the age of 45 will be able to afford to live.

I suppose we should always expect little thought for the less well-off from the nasty party: after all, it was Thatcher who said that any person still travelling by bus beyond the age of 26 should consider themselves a failure. But what of the ‘People’s Army’? The swathe of UKIP candidates elected to the county council last year are surely sticking up for ordinary folk? Of course not. Standing on a narrow policy of opposition to the EU and immigration, when it comes to a real issue that affects the daily lives of the people they are supposed to represent, they are clueless and powerless.

East Sussex County Council is consulting on its proposals until 28th September 2014. You can read the details and voice your opposition here.

Stronger Together

Having allocated £40m of its budget on the road to nowhere – the Bexhill/Hastings Link Road – East Sussex County Council is now gearing up to saving £60m over the next three years by cutting services used by the most vulnerable in the county. The fact that it is sitting on reserves of over £400m make the decision that they are preparing to take at the next meeting of the full Council all the more scandalous.

Under the budget proposals cooked up by the Council’s cabinet committee, children with special needs, disabled people, victims of domestic violence, older people, young people at risk, young parents and the homeless will all have services reduced or cut. If you look at the make-up of the cabinet – white, middle-class and middle-aged down to a man (and I mean that literally; no women, let alone a young person or someone from a different background) – it does go some way to explaining how a decision that requires such a lack of empathy could be made. That, and the fact that over the past two years it has been made clear from the very top: it is the same old nasty Tory party attacking the weakest targets they can find.

However, Lewes Stop the Cuts, a coalition of individuals, trade unions, charities, students and community groups, is committed to fighting these cuts to public services. A lobby of the next Council meeting is being held on Tuesday 12th February. Any individuals or organisations who can support this lobby should meet at the main entrance to County Hall, Lewes from 9am onwards to let the councillors know that those they think are the weakest are - together - the strongest.

Roadblock

The long running saga of the Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) looks to be coming to a sorry end as construction of this pointless road is now due to begin, cutting a swathe through Combe Haven Valley.

Following the process of local consultation in 2004 and a public enquiry in 2009, the current government is now making the scheme happen with approval of the compulsory purchase of the land and George Osborne's decision to contribute £56m towards the project. The Hastings Alliance, the campaign group formed to oppose the BHLR, failed earlier this month in its High Court application for a judicial review of the government's funding decision, and now construction is due to start in January of next year.

Building a meandering road through the countryside to link two towns that sit next to each other on the coast would appear to be utter folly. East Sussex County Council, however, is insistent that the road is essential for the regeneration of the towns as it would open up greenfield areas around North Bexhill and Hastings for new housing and business developments and would relieve the congested and polluted A259.

Improving existing housing in the two towns is a more worthwhile and job-creating investment, and any new business parks would struggle to be viable without greater stimulus to the wider local economy. And the Council should be aiming to create less traffic through improved public transport, not simply spreading it around and probably creating more.

The Hastings Alliance is supported by a range of well-known charities such as Friends of the Earth, the RSPB and the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Future opposition to the scheme would seem to lie outside of the formal process and these genteel campaigners; it will now fall to pressure groups the Combe Haven Defenders and Bexhill Link Road Resistance to toughen up opposition. Such crass road building is sending a chill wind from the recent past blowing through the Combe Haven Valley and also with it, perhaps, the spirit of the eco-warriors of the 1990s. Come January, direct action may be the only way to block this road.