Welcome to the real world

Florally, the town looked its best. Congratulations, therefore, go to everyone who again has made the effort to make the town look beautiful, bright and blooming.

It is fortunate, however, that the judges were only concerned with planters and hanging baskets, borders and allotments.

Had they come to judge the town's economic health the clipboards would have told a rather different story.

Visitors coming into the town to shop are finding that more and more blank spaces where old favourites used to trade.

There is no hiding the fact that, along with the rest of the country, Bexhill is feeling the cold, unwelcome draught of an economic down-turn.

We are not alone. Other towns are also suffering. But that is scant comfort.

The most frequently-mentioned barometer of the so-called "credit crunch" is, of course, the housing market. Falling house prices and the near-paralysis of house sales need to be viewed in context.

For a start, those with longer memories are already saying "We've been here before."

Like all markets, property is subject to peaks and troughs. Though all homes have already lost a percentage of their face value this year, property prices at the end of 2007 had been acknowledged to be both unrealistic and unsustainable.

Despite the recent falls, property values are still well in excess of what they were only a few years ago.

There are, of course, other barometers of economic change.

When Old Town Preservation Society received its magnificently generous bequest from the late Phyllis Dunn in 1992 it seemed that it would never again have to struggle for funds.

Since then, the society has adopted the prudent policy of investing carefully and using the income off its investments for the betterment not only of Old Town but of Bexhill in general.

Without the preservation society making such wise use of Mrs Dunn's bequest, many local groups and societies would have struggled in the intervening years and the town would have been without the Old Town Christmas and May festivals '“ let alone the hanging baskets the South and South East in Bloom judges admired this week.

Who could have foreseen, therefore, that with income from its stock market investments seriously reduced this year the society would need to re-examine its policy and look at whether it should dip into its capital in order to maintain its level of support?

The question needed to be asked. Wisely though. Members at Monday's annual meeting accepted the guidance of their officers that capital can be spent only once.

The society's policy is robust. It is based on the realistic premise that there will be good times and bad times and that in matters of economics a long-term view needs to be taken.

There is a lesson in that for all of us as we face one of the less fortunate times.