My Word - June 8, 2007

Then this week a letter arrived from councillor Terry Fawthrop saying how biased we were towards Labour and how I should resign and go elsewhere.

Well, Terry, let me make this abundantly clear: We share no bias towards any political party.

Indeed, I have regular meetings with your leader Peter Pragnell - we have one such meeting next Tuesday - and his, and the group's views, are published on a regular basis in our paper.

If the opposition dare to oppose your decisions, then of course we will publicise them as well.

Yes there is a balance to be had, I accept that.

But Terry you can sleep tight in the knowledge that we don't prefer Labour to Tory, or indeed vice versa.

Yes it is true I think the Tories have made very hard work on some of the contentious cases, Gipsies being just one example.

But criticise I will continue to do, when necessary, and - dare I say it - praise too when it is deserved.

THE decision by multi-millionaire Mark Gardiner to close The Workplace gym without any warning is, at best, a disappointing one.

Surely the customers should have been given more notice?

If I had been a member, I would be furious, as I am sure many of those affected are.

What an opportunity for the other gyms to snap up this extra business!

SHAME on Freedom Leisure for drastically increasing some of their prices at the Summerfields Leisure Centre. To expect OAPs to pay an extra 50 per cent is total nonsense and sheer bad business.

I WAS honoured on Wednesday night to be inducted into the Hastings Winkle Club. What a great organisation which does so much good for our town.

LAST Thursday evening we decided to take the dog for a walk along the seafront, starting from the old bathing pool site, along to the White Rock Theatre, and back.

The weather was lovely, but I also took the chance to have a look at the general appearance of the area.

We may have a wonderfully successful Grotbusters scheme.

But the general look of some of those buildings in that area is grubby, at very best.

Hastings may have made a lot of inroads in the past few years, in terms of regeneration.

It is clear though that much is still to be done in terms of appearance, and how the town must look to the many thousands of visitors we welcome every year.

Particularly bad I thought were a couple of the shop buildings along Marina. Come on HBC . . .