WELCOME
Our Aims:
To ensure the appropriate provision of services to disabled people in Hastings and Rother.
To promote the right of disabled people to full integration and equality of opportunity in society.
HRDF wishes to represent the views of disabled people in Hastings and Rother regarding the issues that affect them in their day-to-day lives.
We aim to do this in a number of ways:-
Through our newsletter, we will publicise the work we are currently involved in and invite members to contact us with any views they have on any of the topics we have raised.
From time to time, we will hold themed open meetings about issues that disabled people have contacted us about. Examples of these are the meeting we held on changes to rules around blue badge parking in Hastings Borough Council car parks, the meeting to discuss disabled people's concerns around Social Services and the meeting to discuss disabled people's housing concerns.
A number of committee members sit on local groups and networks, either as a representative of HRDF or representing themselves in their local community.
The Access sub group
The Access group is a subgroup of the Hastings and Rother Disability Forum (HRDF).We look at a wide variety of issues affecting disabled people's access to transport and the built environment.
The Group is made up of members of the HRDF committee and the Access officers from both Rother District Council and Hastings Borough Council. The Access group meetings are open meetings, so disabled people are welcome to come along and raise any issues they may have. As a group, we will then see if we can come up with solutions to those issues.
We work closely with Hastings Borough Council, Rother District Council and East Sussex County Council. As the group is made up of a number of disabled people, these statutory organisations often consult us on a variety of issues. We also regularly invite Council officers to our meetings to discuss issues affecting disabled people.
The Access group meetings are held in Committee Room 2 at Hastings Town Hall.
We normally meet on the second Tuesday of the month - the meetings alternate between the afternoon and the evening. The access group meetings are open to all members of The Forum. You are very welcome to attend if you can. Committee room 2 is fully accessible. Due to the nature of the Access group's work, there are often site visits and other meetings regarding specific issues during the month, which usually take place in the afternoon. These enable us to look more closely at the issues involved and therefore means we can make better recommendations.
Some of the work that the Access group has recently been involved with includes:-
- Designing and developing the second access trail at Fairlight Country Park;
- Objecting to the closure of public toilets in Bexhill;
- Improving access to car parks owned by Hastings Borough Council;
- Objecting to changes in Hastings Borough Councils blue badge parking policy;
- Working with South-East Trains on access to the newly-built Hastings railway station;
- Pressuring Hastings Borough Council to increase the number of dropped kerbs and areas of tactile paving;
- Working with Seaspace to improve access to all their buildings.