Trinity Triangle Hastings

• Provide critical early support to renovation of Observer Building as key local landmark and mixed-use building that will provide leisure and retail, workspace and housing at capped rents.
• Provide key early funding to support renovation of 12 Claremont, a 5-storey historic building intended for mixed use including artist workspaces and gallery.
• Provide support grants to secure improvements to other social spaces in the area.
• Provide grants to owners of historic buildings to improve shop front and historic features of the public realm.

The project spent £2,078,742 (securing £8,465,923 match) on buildings owned by Hastings Commons and local businesses. This breaks down as follows:
£1.626m on OB capital works (£7.515m match)
£42k on 12 Claremont capital works (£567k match)
£156k on Claremont alley capital works including cliff stabilisation (£276k match)
£60k on 7 Claremont capital works (£58k match)
£40k on Debenham’s building capital works (£25k match)
£24k on Leyla’s capital works (£5k match)
£18k on Trinity Townhouse capital works (£10k match)
£69k on support grants of which £35k on Holy Trinity Hastings, £22k His Place, £12k on Prospect Place retaining walls (£10k match)
£44k on specialist professional advisory support for the programme (no match)

The original HAZ grant allocation to buildings included £700k for buildings owned by Hastings Commons. Of this £400k was allocated to the Observer Building (OB) owned by Hastings Commons Neighbourhood Ventures, and £300k to 12 Claremont which is on a 125-year peppercorn lease from East Sussex County Council to Hastings Commons CLT.

During the 4 years, as TTHAZ proved its ability to deliver even while schemes elsewhere struggled due to delays relating to Covid, additional funds were allocated by Historic England, especially to the OB because it had a clear funding gap and (since the contractors were already on site) the ability to spend within strict timeframes.

In total £1.668m was spent on buildings owned by Hastings Commons (excluding match), made up of the £700k that was part of the original bid, an additional £926k grant extension and transfer of £42k from underspends in other parts of the programme. Match funding of over £8.4m was secured against the original target of £700k for the OB and 12C. In addition, funding for the renovation of the roof and vaults of the Observer Building and full renovation of 12 Claremont have now been secured and will be completed over the coming year.

Delays to the lease for 12 Claremont made it impossible to begin renovation until the very end of the TTHAZ programme. Close to £600k was allocated to the project in match funding for professional fees before the end of the programme. However, the allocated funds were temporarily transferred to the Observer Building renovation with approval from Historic England with a commitment to provide this match. Additionally, due to the refusal from East Sussex County Council (ESCC) to allow housing to be included as part of the project, the housing element was replaced with plans for extended artists workspace and an international hosting centre for community practitioners and activists. The full 12 Claremont renovation works began in April 2024 following programme closure due to the above changes and delays. All temporarily reallocated funding has been diverted back to the project.

Capital grants have been made to the former Debenhams Building for the restoration of the large fanlight window, Leyla’s for heritage door and window, 7 Claremont full shopfront restoration, and works to the Lower Alley area including stabilising the cliffs. Trinity Townhouse also received a capital grant for exterior works.

At the end of 2021 (after the works on the Lower Alley and Debenhams building were completed) to support the remaining capital grant distribution it was decided to appoint an architectural consultancy (Donald Insall) to undertake an independent prioritisation of 153 buildings within the area . This created a long-list of the 20 highest scoring properties and recommended that CLT staff engage with owners to investigate levels of interest. Contact was established with 11 properties. For a range of reasons (e.g. freeholders selling, leaseholders moving out, cost of works required being much higher than grant available) this was then whittled down to four and these were costed by Donald Insall. However, two of these then withdrew and when the works were tendered the costs came back at more than double what the architects had suggested. This is why only 7 Claremont and Leyla’s received a capital grant after 2021.

In total £342k was spent excluding match (of which £44k was spent on specialist legal and architectural support over the four years to meet the strict requirements of heritage works), made up of £300k that was part of the original bid and an additional £42k from underspends in other parts of the programme. Match funding of £374k was secured against the original target of £300k.

Support grants were made to His Place and Holy Trinity churches, both of which have led directly to successful applications to National Lottery Heritage Fund bringing a further £5M+ into the neighbourhood over the coming years to renovate these two heritage assets at risk. We were not able during the period of the HAZ grant to meet our target of removing 1 heritage asset at risk from the register, but given the recent funding news we are confident that 2 will be removed over the coming years.

In addition, an annual programme of collective maintenance and cleaning was developed. Starting within the ‘investigations’ theme, this was later funded through the impact & legacy strand below.

In total £69k was spent excluding match against original allocation of £130k, with underspends allocated largely to other parts of the buildings strand which were able to spend funds during strict allocated timeframes within the year.  Match funding of just £10k was secured against the original target of £130k since we are only able to report match that was actually spent by 31 March 2024 - the additional National Lottery Heritage Fund of £5m+ will be spent over the coming years.

• Work with a broad and diverse range of local people to reveal, reframe and celebrate the histories of the neighbourhood and its built heritage

A programme of grants to local creatives and community groups to undertake cultural projects related to the neighbourhood, including:

Projects coordinated or led by Hastings Commons

• Campaign Film (Observer Building tour)
• Commoners Rock event
• Commons brand development
• Five Alleys research project
• Isolation Station Hastings
• Observer Building former employees video
• Observer Building centenary - book and permanent display
• Virtual Triangle by OBX
• Wondergolf in the OB
• Independence Day Film
• Show your Love event
• Heritage showcase event
• Cultural programme artistic coordination and comms

Projects funded and led outside of Hastings Commons

• America Ground book by Steve Peak
• ‘Welcome to the America Ground’ (America Ground Business Group)
• America Ground - The Legend - musical play and film
• Arts on Prescription history mural tiles
• Big ADVENTure by Hattie Spice
• Project Art Works Untold Stories cultural pilot
• Sea Beneath by MSL
• Sun Shall Rise/Wild Horn Fair by MSL
• Engagement event led by Trinity Townhouse in deepest lockdown
• Frock up Friday
• We Dig Hastings (Gardening Our Streets)
• Women’s Voice suffragette map project
• Living Memories project by Emma Harding
• Looking out Looking In window displays at Debenhams
• Love Letters workshop and event
• Opus concerts
• New Writing South poems/stories about the America Ground

In total £284k was spent excluding match, made up of £150k that was part of the original TTHAZ bid, £90k from the Cultural Programme plus a further £44k allocated from underspends in other parts of the programme. Of this £90k was for projects led by Hastings Commons, £55k for Cultural programme artistic coordination and comms, and £139k for projects led outside of Hastings Commons. Match funding of £89k was secured against the original target of £50k.

• Develop and provide a range of training opportunities that build heritage skills.
• Develop a digital exchange as a platform for audience development, heritage interpretation and impact mapping of HAZ programme activity.

TTHAZ supported a range of projects led by Leisure & Learning, the registered charity that helps to ‘animate’ the Hastings Commons buildings to maximise their social and educational value. These included heritage stewards, Know Your Older Buildings, and the Kickstarter programme. It also supported the early development of the Creative Technology Hub which is now OBX, now providing community access to new technologies and delivering workshops to young people with complex needs and care experience. New projects include working with Fresh Visions Motivate, to support media spaces in their buildings across Hastings, and Commoning The Programme which is introducing young people to programming electronic media art works for the public. Early work on a local Digital Exchange was carried out by MSL.

In total £191k was spent excluding match, made up of £185k that was part of the original bid plus a further £6k allocated from underspends in other parts of the programme. Match funding of £483k was secured against the original target of £300k - in large part from central government funding to support the Kickstarter programme, as well as other funds secured by Leisure & Learning towards these activities.

• Investigate and seek to create a Neighbourhood Bond or similar to leverage private community investment into the HAZ area, enabling ongoing financing of heritage and neighbourhood development
• Undertake development work to determine the feasibility and optimal approach to developing:
  • a Maintenance Club to encourage and enable better ongoing annual maintenance of buildings in the TTHAZ area;
  • a potential Development Order enabling public art and activities within the large open space to the west of the radial hub
  • reinventing the seafront garden at Robertson Terrace/Carlise Parade
• Identify and develop network of technical specialists that can be drawn on to enhance the conversation specialist skills deficit in the area
• Use TTHAZ funding to leverage at least an additional £2m of funding across all activities during the four year period

In the early years this focused on a series of ‘investigations’ to explore ideas and projects that we believed could help the long-term community-led heritage-focused regeneration of the neighbourhood and eventually the wider town. These included:

• Maintenance Club. Bringing together owners of buildings within the Trinity Triangle to collectively benefit from maintenance works to their buildings, especially for awkward works at height such as gutter clearance. This was up and running within the first year of the programme, not carrying out capital works but undertaking maintenance and cleaning across a wide range of properties required on an ongoing basis to prevent longer-term deterioration. Eventually a total of 28 buildings opted-in to the Maintenance Club including 6 Claremont; 6, 8 & 10 Trinity; 9, 38 & 44 Robertson; 23, 24 & 25 Claremont). This experimental project developed by Jericho Road Solutions has been recognised by Historic England and CADW as an important innovation and the local work will continue and expand under the leadership of the Love Hastings BID (Business Improvement District).
• Cambridge Road Study. Urban Futures undertook a study of how to make safer the stretch of Cambridge Road between ESK and the Observer Building.
• Monuments & Alleys. Surveys and plans for the future restoration of the Lion & Unicorn statues and the Waldegrave Fountain.
• Neighbourhood Investment Mechanism. Research and development work to explore innovative options for alternative ways to attract and manage investment into the White Rock neighbourhood, including consideration of how it might fit within a nationwide approach to unlock large-scale investment such as pension funds to achieve affordable housing and neighbourhood transformation. This work is ongoing with support from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation..
• Green Dreams’ investigation into the potential to reclaim one or more single parking spaces in the Trinity Triangle as mini-‘parklets’. This led to an experimental parklet and was taken forwards by Transition Town Hastings as the ‘We Dig Hastings’ project, using an innovative time credits approach to reward volunteers supporting the creation and care of a series of planters throughout the area.

In the final year of the programme the focus shifted more to evaluation of the impact and action to embed and extend the work. Many of the major capital developments supported by TTHAZ are still under ongoing development with further funding secured from other sources to continue to improve the area and provide increasing opportunities for engagement, jobs and cultural events. Many ongoing relationships and initiatives have begun and will be sustained into the future such as the Maintenance Club. The learning and investigation work provides a rich source of knowledge, experience, relationships and materials that will support ongoing heritage development in the area and inform future heritage strategies and investments across Hastings. To support the ongoing legacy Historic England have in principle agreed an additional year of funding (2024-25) to develop a heritage strategy which will extend the Trinity Triangle approach to heritage regeneration from Rock A Nore in the east to the former Bathing Pool at West St Leonards.

In total £253k was spent excluding match, with £315k having been allocated as part of the original bid. The underspends was allocated to other programme areas including programme delivery, partly since those carrying our programme delivery have significantly contributed to impact & legacy work as outlined below.

Match funding of £87k was secured against the original target of £200k. However, we significantly exceeded match funding targets across all other areas of the programme including additional leveraged funds from support grants as part of the buildings strand, and additional leveraged funds to support the Observer Building and 12 Claremont developments which will make a major contribution towards future impact & legacy.