Open Hastings Help now Search or ask⌘K

For local businesses

Of the £18m the borough council paid to companies we could match in the twelve months to August 2026, 16% (£2.9m) went to 68 firms registered in Hastings or St Leonards. How this is counted

Three questions, answered from the public record: what is changing near your premises, what public money you could go for, and which rules are changing while you can still have a say. There's no sign-up, and we don't give advice or tell you what you're eligible for. Every row links to its source.

Business premises on the move

Planning applications about commercial premises, such as a change of use, a new shopfront or a former pub becoming a café. We pick them out of the weekly lists using words in the council's own description, and each row shows the words that matched. The extensions and conservatories this leaves out are on the full planning page.

All planning

Every business premises application on the record, by ward.

For your own street or premises: search a postcode or street name, or start from your ward. Every street page lists what has been proposed and decided there, and has a feed you can follow. That's how you can hear about the application next door before it is decided.

What public bodies are buying

Money going out: contract notices from the two national services, Contracts Finder (below-threshold) and Find a Tender (above-threshold). A notice is on the record when the buyer is a Hastings council, when the notice states a delivery postcode in the borough, or when the buyer (the NHS, the college, a housing association) or winning supplier is itself based here. Each row says which of these reasons applies.

These are minimums, not totals. Below-threshold notices reach Contracts Finder at the buyer's discretion, and our record starts on Wed 15 Jul 2026, so earlier contracts aren't shown. County-council notices cover the whole county and are labelled, never counted as Hastings spending.

Listed first: contracts the borough council is buying or holds on its own contracts register; notices that state a delivery postcode, or the buyer's or the winning firm's own address, in a Hastings ward; and notices whose title or description names Hastings, St Leonards, a postcode in TN34, TN35, TN37 or TN38, or a Hastings ward. Ashdown, Baird, Castle, Conquest, Ore and St Helens count only as “Castle ward” and so on, because those words name other things too. The TN postcode districts reach a little beyond the borough, into Pett and the edge of Bexhill. Everything else on the record is under “County-wide and elsewhere in East Sussex”, on the same page.

Open to bid

Notices still open, soonest deadline first. Each notice says how to respond. Every notice, wherever it is, appears in the opportunities feed, and its closing date in the deadlines calendar. Neither needs an account.

No notice open to bid is in or for Hastings at the moment, by the rule above.

County-wide and elsewhere in East Sussex (2)

The county council's other open notices, soonest deadline first. The county buys for the whole county, so the work isn't necessarily in Hastings.

A tag saying a notice suits small firms (SME) or charities and social enterprises (VCSE) appears only where the notice itself says so. Whether a notice suits you is for you to judge from the notice. The code after a notice is its CPV code, the procurement vocabulary every notice uses for what is being bought.

Recently awarded

Awarded is not the same as spent, and the council's own papers hold the decision behind each contract.

County-wide and elsewhere in East Sussex (12)

The 12 most recent of the county council's other awards.

Busy weeks ahead: school holidays and the town's big events, week by week.

Contracts ending soon: when the contracts already let around Hastings end, and so when the work is likely to be let again.

What the council owns: the borough's list of its land and buildings, and which it lets out. The list doesn't say what is empty; the council's own page lists properties to let.

How quickly the council pays its suppliers: We found no prompt payment figures on the council's transparency pages. What the borough publishes

The government's own services search every public body: Contracts Finder lists most public-sector contract opportunities, and Find a Tender the largest ones. Both are free and need no account to search.

Grants and loans open to businesses

Rounds open now whose funder says businesses can apply, checked by hand on the funder's own page, with who can apply in the funder's words. Grants and loans are listed apart.

Funding

Loans

From Funding, where community rounds are listed too. Always confirm on the funder's own page.

The weeks ahead

School holidays and the town's big events, week by week. Twelve weeks, with sources.

Week fromEast Sussex schoolsIn town
Mon 26 OctAutumn half term Sat 24 Oct to Sun 1 Nov
Mon 2 NovTerm time
Mon 9 NovTerm time
Mon 16 NovTerm time
Mon 23 NovTerm time
Mon 30 NovTerm time

Council property to let

Units, offices and kiosks the borough council is letting: 9 available and 2 under offer. Each links to the council's listing, which names the letting agent.

From Hastings Borough Council's properties to let page ↗, read 14 Oct 2026. Sales, leases and transfers decided in the council's papers are on Council land and buildings.

What actually gets funded here

The most recent published grants: who got the money, what for, and how much. It's the most reliable guide to what funders actually pay for in this town, but only their own programme pages can tell you what they would fund next.

The money map

Rules changing now

Consultations that are still open. Licensing policy, trading rules and charges usually change through a consultation, so a taxi licensing amendment or a gambling policy review, for example, appears here while you can still respond.

All consultations

Premises licences, street trading and gambling policy are decided by the borough council's licensing committees; their papers are in the committee record with every other borough committee's.

Everything we hold on licensing (premises licences, street trading, taxis and gambling policy) is gathered on the licensing & trading topic page, which explains exactly how it is compiled.

Solar panels on a business roof

Solar panels on the roof of a shop, office, warehouse or other building that isn't a home or a block of flats are permitted development under Part 14, Class J of the General Permitted Development Order: no planning application is needed, within these limits.

This summarises the Order's words as they stood on 11 October 2026, as last amended for solar in December 2023; it isn't advice about a particular building. The Order is the authority: Class J on legislation.gov.uk ↗, and all of Part 14 ↗, which also covers homes. Prior approval applications appear on the planning page like any other.

Who decides, and how to keep watch

The people behind the decisions, and the feeds that watch the record for you. Nothing needs an account, and we never learn who is watching.

The decisions digest is what has actually been decided, in plain English; the committee record holds each committee's meetings and papers. Agendas usually appear about a week before a meeting, so you can see what's being decided while it can still change. The councillors page lists the borough councillors by ward and the county councillors by division.

To watch without checking back: the opportunities feed carries every contract notice still open to bid and every consultation still open to answer, and the deadlines calendar puts their closing dates in your diary, updating itself when a deadline moves. Every street and organisation page has its own feed — how to follow explains it from scratch.

If you run an organisation here, the opportunity radar goes a step further: say what you do once, and it keeps a page of every open tender and consultation that mentions it, with deadlines and the matched words shown. Only you can judge whether a notice suits your business, from what the notice itself says.