Tories launch tourism action plan in Hastings

Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture spokesman, visited the pier earlier this month and unveiled the Tory pledges to get the tourism industry back on its feet.

These include appointing a dedicated tourism minister, a drive to promote domestic holidays and financial incentives to help those in the business.

He said: "Tourism has been completely ignored by Labour.

"What we want to do as a Conservative Government is to massively reinvigorate our tourism industry. We want half the money that Brits spend on tourism to be spent in the UK because this increase in tourism will be worth several billion pounds to UK economy and will create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

"And Hastings is the sort of place that will benefit '“ it has a wonderful history but the tourism industry is a shadow of what it used to be.

"We need to get away from this idea that you have to go abroad to have a great holiday by making seaside towns like Hastings much more attractive place to visit."

But former MP Michael Foster hit back: "This is total hypocrisy. Since 1998 tourism has gone up from 25 million visitors a year to 29 million and Hastings has had its fair share of that.

"We have put in 9.6 million into tourism in the south east in the past five years and just recently Hastings got 2.65 million for the Jerwood."