I visit Hastings on a grey day at the beginning of September, as summer draws to a close. If the press is to be believed, the “staycation” has made this a great season for seaside towns: five million Britons holidayed at home.
Near the fairground, set back from the beach, there is a pool of water with swan-shaped pedal boats. It is drizzling, so half of them are unused and covered with blue tarpaulin.
“That’s a sign of things to come. Completely dead,” says Matthew Greggs, a 17-year-old who has spent the summer working at a doughnut stall. He left school in June and will soon be unemployed. He is philosophical. “It’s lucky that school ends in summer, when there’s a few jobs around, because you need to work before you can sign on.”
Although the summer brings seasonal employment, as the holidaymakers return home the outlook is bleak. The TUC found last month that unemployment in seaside towns has risen in the past year.
Despite its location in affluent East Sussex, Hastings has endemic problems with poverty and deprivation, exacerbated by the recent downturn. Research by the Centre for Cities found that the average full-time wage is the lowest in the UK, at £349 a week, although it is one of the least affordable places to live.
Peter Pragnell, leader of the council, explains that it took a while for the recession to hit. “To an extent we were protected, as we started from such a low base, with some parts of town in the most deprived 3 per cent in the country,” he says. “Something that was considered a weakness – that 43 per cent of people here are employed by the public sector – became a short-term strength. Those industries were cushioned, although I suspect that they’ll be losing people fairly soon.”
Young people, who already had very few opportunities, given the dearth of private industry, have been hit particularly hard. Hastings Borough Council announced in August that it will receive £2.3m from the government’s Future Jobs Fund to create opportunities for young people, but it is a drop in the ocean: nearly one in ten of Hastings’s under-25s is unemployed.
Andrew Batsworth, project manager of the Xtrax centre, works directly with young people who find themselves homeless, jobless, or in severe financial difficulties. He draws attention to the closure of Woolworths and the town’s branch of Mothercare this year. “Those major retailers were the main bread and butter of most of our young people. Those first-rung jobs have really disappeared.”
It is not just young people who face problems. While Britons have stayed at home, so, apparently, have other Europeans. The thriving business in language schools for foreign students has reduced significantly this year. Angela O’Brien, a 43-year-old mother-of-two, explains: “There are normally stacks of language students, and we have lodgers over the summer. It’s not a huge amount of money, but it helps us pay the bills and set aside a bit to help us through the year. This year we didn’t have any students to stay.”
As the summer ends, an agency on the seafront has luminous pink and green cards in the windows with a handful of jobs advertised in marker pen – factory production workers, farmworkers, sewing machinists. The vast majority are part-time positions, which, for many, are simply not viable.
“There’s not much incentive to take a part-time job, as benefits are so affected,” explains Batsworth. “When we work out how much someone gets in extra support, often to match it they would need to earn over £18,000 a year. In Hastings that’s the average wage for a full-time job. Benefits are a difficult way to live at the best of times, and it’s sad to see so many people here wrapped up in the system so young.”
I speak to a group of 16-year-old school leavers congregated by the rusting metal gates of the pier, a wide expanse of wood and empty shops that has been closed since 2006. When I ask whether the lack of jobs has made them consider staying in education, I provoke derisive laughter. “What do I want school for?” says one girl. Another adds, “Even if there aren’t any jobs, I still need the Jobseekers money. My parents can’t pay for me for ever.”
Over the past six years, Hastings has attracted substantial public funding for regeneration. There have been notable success stories, such as the University Centre, a blue-glass building that has been open and expanding since 2003, and the town centre has been smartened up. But the recession has stalled some projects, as funding has been targeted at services for individuals such as debt management.
Pragnell remains optimistic for the future, however. “The key here is not taking our eyes off the ball with the long-term problems. The recession will last two or three years, but those problems will still be there. It took decades to descend to where we are now, so it won’t improve in just a few years. We need to train people and get them skilled and work-ready, but if there’s no work for them to do it’s pointless – they’ll leave town. We’re working with businesses, and making it a nicer place generally.”
Content from our partners
Related
