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Faded English seaside town fears wave of cuts
AFP - Tuesday, October 19
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Faded English seaside town fears wave of cuts
HASTINGS, England (AFP) - – When historic Hastings Pier burned down earlier this month, residents vowed to bounce back from the latest blow to the faded English seaside resort, one of the country's poorest areas.
Yet the charred hulk that stretches out from the pebbled beach could be the least of the town's worries, if spending cuts being unveiled by the government of Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday are as harsh as feared.
The beleaguered southeastern town had until recently looked like it was beginning to pull out of a long economic slump but the pier inferno and the looming austerity measures have together cast a new pall.
"The most vulnerable areas of the country are taking the biggest hit," Jeremy Birch, the Labour leader of Hastings Borough Council, told AFP.
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has warned Hastings, like all councils, to brace for cuts of up to 25 percent as it tries to tackle a deficit projected to hit 149 billion pounds (170 billion euros, 238 billion dollars) in 2010/2011.
With 43 percent of the workforce in Hastings employed by the public sector -- the second highest proportion of any town in England -- the cuts entail "significant probable job losses", said Birch.
They will also likely create a "double whammy" for the town, as welfare is set to be among the worst-hit sectors, he said.
The symbol of both a grand past and troubled present, Hastings is best known as the site of a famous battle in 1066 which resulted in the Norman conquest of England.
In Victorian times the town became a coastal playground for London's rich and the "peerless pier" opened in 1874. But air travel killed off the tourism industry and Hastings became a symbol of decline. Even the pier closed in 2006.
Hastings is only 90 minutes by train from London but it is in the top 10 percent of Britain's most deprived areas, with some parts in the top three percent, government statistics show.
It has the lowest average annual income in England at 349 pounds a week. Unemployment stands at 20 percent. One in five children lives in poverty.
The council has not said yet which services will be affected but the cuts, which the coalition warned of after taking power in May, have already started to hurt.
"It's frightening," said Debbie Craddock of the Bridge Builder Service, a group helping people with mental health problems. It is to close at the end of November after its state funding was cut.
"Our clients are genuinely scared. Any reduction in benefit means people aren't going to be eating properly, it means they won't be able to heat their houses over the winter."
Craddock herself is feeling the pain -- the mother-of-one will also lose her job when the service closes.
David Francis, 46, was laid off by a state housing association in August and fears he will also lose some of the handouts he now needs to support his two children.
"I'm obviously very worried," he said.
"I moved to Hastings 10 years ago because I got a job in the public sector and that enabled me to play a part in the town. Now that I'm not working that has affected me."
Hastings had just started to enjoy the fruits of a 500-million-pound influx of regeneration funds over the past decade.
A four-million-pound waterfront art gallery is being built next to the fishermen's huts that overlook the English Channel, and cheap housing is wooing some Londoners.
There is a new railway station and college while the Saga group, which specialises in products for older people, recently announced it creating 800 jobs in the town.
Francis has since found some work as a manager with a shop run by the Hastings Pier and White Rock Trust -- which has campaigned for the last four years for the reopening of the pier, only to see it incinerated on October 5.
"Hastings is a resilient town," he said, looking out at the blackened remains.
"It has a lot of resources, the people have a lot of resources and we will use these to keep the economy going."
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