Bexhill needs a classy tourist transport idea for the seafront

From: Dave Walsh, Rotherfield Avenue, Bexhill

Jackie Bialeska highlights the ease with which the Colonnade becomes a popular Community Café when not subjected to unrealistic and costly Council schemes [“Exactly what the Colonnade is for” – August 3].

I see that the eminently qualified Dr Barry Snape is still trying to get Network Rail, Historic England, ESCC and RDC to get their act together in relation to the section of wall on Station Road that he has identified as concerning. Whether or not he can obtain the additional information now sought, he has already carried out a public service by just raising the issue and effectively putting together a file that can be used in any future legal proceedings. Unfortunately, this may well be as far as he can get for now.

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Sheik Abid Gulzar is very media savvy and his letter sets out a good case for his ownership of Hastings Pier, although I doubt that he would have been prepared to undertake the restoration phase himself. I understand the anger of the Hastings Pier Group given the way that things have now turned out but it’s probably no more helpful to turn on the new owner than it was to be so naïve about a minimalist structure, with a minimal income stream and no forward plan. How that did that come about? Who’s responsible? Mr Gulzar is a business man doing what businessmen often do.

It may be galling to many but he was, effectively, only handed the opportunity to step in by the pier failing under poor management!

Maybe that’s what the anger is all about really? One of his ideas for Hastings [The “Dotty Train”] has always been rather obvious and is perhaps more suited to Bexhill with its Blackpool type promenade than anywhere else.

If the tram or trolley bus service had been retained on the only seafront locally which doesn’t directly carry through traffic, that would have been a tourist bonanza!

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Looking to the future though, a Disney-type kids transport system isn’t such a good match for the more sophisticated Bexhill. Other sorts of road vehicles, like Silver Airstream Coaches, perambulating between Galley Hill and Cooden at regular intervals could be a boon to residents and visitors alike. They could board and dismount along a two mile route, including the seafront, whenever they liked.

It wouldn’t need Rother spending a fortune, just a bit of competent imagination – currently in short supply all round.

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