Bexhill's wishlist 2007

Second is the part-completed extension to the De La Warr Pavilion. Hoardings remain around a building site which has remained silent since work stopped last Spring. Third is the long-vacant Hollenden House in Buckhurst Road. Planning permission to replace the former retirement home for ex-serviceman with modern flats has still to be taken up by developers.

This week's comment:

NEW Year resolutions can take many forms, from personal pledges to quit smoking or lose weight to key community objectives.

For Bexhill, 2006 has been - in current management-speak - a "challenging" year. For that read "Not all targets met."

There are key tasks in town which, if they merited action in 2006, positively cry out for achievement in 2007.

Pre-eminent among these are the removal of two town centre eyesores.

One is, of course, the Grand Hotel ruin. The public has every right to expect that now that Rother has finally put an enforcement notice requiring the removal of this hideous reminder of Bexhill's once-significant tourism industry firm action will be taken if the demolition deadline is exceeded.

It would be nice to hope that an elegant new building would soon follow in the Grand's place.

However, with the former Hollenden House still standing vacant only a few hundred yards away in Buckhurst Road the portents are not that encouraging.

Building sites are themselves an eyesore but in the normal course of events development - as on the prominent Sackville Road / Marina corner - is reasonably rapid.

Not so the De La Warr Pavilion project opposite. Happily, the pavilion itself re-opened in the autumn of 2004. Work stopped on the education room and office block that were being added at the west end when the Pavilion Trust ran out of cash. We are constantly told that all is well and that pavilion refurbishment will be completed.

But when?

Just a few weeks into 2007 will see the first anniversary of work ceasing. Meanwhile the hoardings stand around a deserted site. How sad when "world-renowned architectural icon" and "eyesore" are synonymous.

The word "regeneration" appears to have been filed away for 2006. Meanwhile, traders and shoppers alike continue to put a town centre multi-storey on their New Year wish-list - as they have been to the Observer's knowledge for four decades.

New Year resolutions are about pipe-dreams as well as the attainable. The more the farcical contrivance of Battle Tourist Information Centre handling Bexhill enquiries continues the further any practical hope of restoring an independent Bexhill TIC seems to recede.

Still, resolutions are also about faith and determination...

Resolutions are about putting right that which is wrong. Bexhill still has much that it can be proud of and on that note of optimism we wish all our readers a happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year.