Ideas are urgently required for Liveability Funding.

- Wed 22nd Sep 2004

The first full meeting of the Hayling Island Community Board was held on 7th September. This Board has been set up to implement ideas for the improvement of life on Hayling using funds provided to Havant under the Liveability funding initiative. HIRA is well represented on this Board.

The aims of the programme have been widely reported and will continue to be reported in the Islander, so the purpose of this article is not to act as an official source of information on this activity. It is rather to act on behalf of Islanders generally rather than on behalf of any specific sections of the community whose representatives also sit on the Board.

Hayling Island has been allocated £50K to spend as determined by the Board members and has access to considerably more by application and approval of the overall Borough representatives. If we do not get our share, it will be because we have not made sufficient effort to persuade our peers in the Borough. All money has to be spent in 18 months, so ideas and decisions are urgent.

Any suggestions can be emailed to news@hayling.co.uk - We will pass them on

The purpose of the fund is to enhance life on the Island and to give a feeling of well-being when one steps out of one’s front door. The funding is therefore to improve life in the outdoor environment and in particular to enhance open spaces whether they be rural, urban or seaside. This means that funding could be applied to the Beach, to the Billy Trail, to the Legion field, to playgrounds or sports fields or to any of the other spaces on the Island to which people have access including shopping centres and other roads and routes.

It is hoped that the Board will continue in existence after the initial Liveability programme has been completed and then to act as a forum to further implement improvements to life on Hayling, as other funding programmes come into being. The mechanism for this continuation and the ways in which members will be elected in future will also need addressing.

We do not want to spend money that should be provided by government agencies, but to use it for projects that would otherwise be un-funded. To ensure that the money is spent on activities which will be of general benefit, WE NEED IDEAS FROM RESIDENTS. Please contact us and let us know your desires or come to an advertised meeting and make your case.

While the following is a personal list it is indicative of the type of improvements that could be made: I would like to see a safe foot/cycle path from the entrance of Sinah Warren to the Kench. I would also like to see a hard path from the western end of the beach to Eastoke ideally linking to the Sinah section. The only bits along which it is currently difficult to push a pushchair are at the Coastguard station and past the funfair and from the golf course to Sinah so the amount of investment is not great. I would like to see exercise stations along the beach (say 10 to 12) at which people can carry out simple tasks. These routes are common abroad and in the USA. Such stations would encourage healthy adults to be out in the evenings and perhaps help control vandalism.

On Hayling, there are various footpaths beside roads that are obstructed or very narrow. I suggest we could use money to buy the very small amounts of land needed to improve passage at these points. Other people have suggested improved signposting on the Island and the sponsorship of the roundabouts at Beachlands and the pound are still to be resolved.

Individual groups such as the disabled and youth will have more specific demands which could be met from the fund: so, it is partly up to you.

Update on Billy Trail Survey.

This survey has now been completed and partial analysis carried out. The main outcome is the extensive use of the trail: over a 100 hour period some 6,600 people were counted and up to 1,000 completed survey questionnaires.
We can now hope that Hampshire CC will realise how extensively the Trail is used and valued so that future developments, e.g. repair of the Trail, are carried out to provide the best outcome for all users.

Hayling Billy Model Railway,

At a recent meeting on Hayling, John Bell gave a talk on the Hayling Billy Railway as it used to be and described its evolution and demise. He is also the person who built the scale model of the Hayling line which has been exhibited from time to time. In discussion with Bob Haddock of the current Beach Railway organisation, it seems that he is keen to set up a small museum of Hayling Industrial life, (transport, fishing, agriculture, salt making, shipbuilding etc,) and this seemed a marvellous opportunity to provide a permanent home for John’s lifework.

Is this an idea worth taking further and, if so, have people any suggestions as to how this might be progressed?

Sea Level Rise.

We are continually being bombarded with doom and gloom in relation to the future and to the impact of global warming and sea level rise. The Prime Minister made a recent foray into this area that will concern many. We are being told that we must do all sorts of things to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and to accept, willingly, various schemes for energy production that will solve little.

It is quite true that we should reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, not necessarily because they produce global warming, but because they are in very limited supply and we should conserve them as much as possible. It is grossly inefficient to squander a valuable resource merely because it is currently easily available.

A strategy that will reduce consumption by some arbitrary date in the future will have little impact because the resource will become exhausted within the same timescale.

The effect produced by any policy of the UK government will have no effect in global terms because all other consumers e.g. China and India, will negate any benefit we will generate.

The other main issue in the argument is that, to date, there is little, if any, evidence that global, rather than local effects, exist. Gross extrapolations into the future, on the whole, hinder rather than help rational discussion.

The reason I make these points is rather simple and parochial, even though there clearly are wider issues. The reason is that if the world at large begins to believe that communities such as Hayling are likely to disappear in decades rather than millennia, then all investment will cease, people will say that Hayling is no longer worth saving and, of considerable interest to many, property values will drop and people wishing to leave the Island may have difficulty in doing so.

So, let us support and encourage the various authorities to continue with the Hayling sea defence programmes, but at the same time ask, very forcibly, what is your real evidence that we will only survive for a limited time into the future. After all, we are more due for an ice age than a tropical one.

AGM.

Our AGM is on the 21st October in the URC Hall, starting at 7.30. Apart from the usual business we hope to have David Willetts, our MP, to talk and be available to answer questions.

Tony Higham.

Main contacts:

Chairman: Paul Fisher 9246-1412

Membership/Treasurer: Shirley Adams 9246-2881

Notice Board: Lois Neale 9246-9339

Reporter: Tony Higham 9246-4723

By forum user, Bruce_Bennett