Hastings Local Plan Pre-Submission Version 2023-2041 (Regulation 19) September 2026

Foreword

Cllr Glenn Haffenden, Leader of the Council

This Local Plan sets out how Hastings will grow and change over the coming years. It addresses some of the most significant challenges facing our borough: the need for more homes, the urgency of tackling climate change, the importance of protecting our green spaces and historic character, and the need to strengthen our local economy.

Housing remains one of the most pressing issues for our community. Too many residents struggle to access secure and affordable homes. Through this Plan, and alongside our Housing Strategy, we are committed to increasing the supply of genuinely affordable, high-quality housing, including new council houses. Growth must deliver real benefits for local people — supporting families, improving wellbeing, and creating sustainable neighbourhoods.

As well as providing homes and jobs, the Plan makes sure that the right infrastructure is in place. As well as an ambitious and realistic approach to maximising the delivery of affordable housing, the Plan incorporates other infrastructure requirements, including community facilities, sports facilities and health centres. The Plan ensures that developers contribute towards the delivery of these and other types of infrastructure, such as parking improvements, open space, play spaces, public rights of way and public transport enhancements.

Hastings is a town with a unique identity and exceptional environmental assets. We are therefore determined, wherever possible, to protect and enhance our open spaces, sports facilities, heritage and landscape setting. Growth must be carefully managed so that it strengthens, rather than undermines, the character of our borough.

This Plan reflects these difficult choices. We must respond to national requirements while ensuring that development happens in the right places, and to the right standard. Our high level of housing need means we have taken a ‘no stone unturned’ approach to meeting that requirement.  This includes providing a strategy within the Plan for higher density new housing developments wherever this can be sustainably achieved.

Foreword

Cllr Mark Etherington, Lead Councillor for Strategic Planning and Climate Adaptation

National planning policy requires councils to plan positively for growth, and to meet identified housing need. The Local Plan demonstrates how this housing need can be met, alongside provision for employment land, infrastructure and community facilities.

Hastings faces significant constraints. The borough is tightly bounded with the sea to the south and areas of high environmental value to the north, east and west, including the High Weald National Landscape and Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve. As a result, land availability is strikingly limited and new development must therefore make efficient use of suitable sites, starting with previously developed land. The Plan sets out minimum levels of density for new housing development, seeking the highest densities in the most sustainable locations.

This Plan sets out site allocations and development management policies to guide the scale, location and quality of development. It includes policies to promote energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, support sustainable transport, protect areas of environmental sensitivity, and strengthen the local economy. It also identifies land for employment growth to support investment and job creation within the wider Hastings and Rother Functional Economic Market Area. Pitches for our Gypsy and Traveller community have been identified. The Plan also responds to the challenge of our changing climate, with policies that address the need, not only to manage future flood risk, but to reduce existing risk where we can and ensure that homes and businesses are built with our changing climate in mind.   

Careful, evidence-based planning is key to ensuring that Hastings grows sustainably. It is equally important to balance these development needs with climate resilience and environmental protection.