Update 11 January 2022

Welcome to the society's latest update.  

This week, we're trying to understand what lies behind the current bin strike in the town; we're going to try to answer the question - when is a new hospital a new hospital? Finally, we're going to look at some opinion polls which purport to show voting intention at constituency level - and we'll see what they say about Eastbourne.

So first the bin strike.

As we've said before, we no longer live in the town, so we can only imagine how inconvenient and unpleasant the current situation is for those who do.  Here's hoping the dispute is resolved soon.  At the time of writing though, this does not seem likely.

The strike is about wages, particularly for the HGV-qualified drivers in the workforce.  But it's also about some of the conditions at the depot.  On one side of the dispute is the GMB, which is one of the major general trade unions, representing workers in all kinds of industries and sectors.  On the other is Eastbourne's LibDem-run council, which outsources its refuse collection services to a private company, albeit one it wholly owns and whose board comprises LibDem councillors and senior Borough Council officers.

The bin workers look to their equivalents in Lewes.  After all, Eastbourne and Lewes now manage their refuse collection under a joint brand - Environment First.  The Lewes workers are directly employed by the local authority.  The Eastbourne bin workers are not, and say that their counterparts in Lewes are paid more.   

The Eastbourne drivers are looking for a 25% pay uplift.  The Union argues it's less about the rate of increase, more about a decent hourly rate.  The Council has offered 7%, which the strikers have rejected.  

So the dispute continues.  GMB members are picketing the depot on strike days.  The Council has sought to get round the strike by using HGV qualified supervisors to drive the vehicles.   The picket line, made up of strikers and GMB supporters from elsewhere, has prevented them.

If anything, the two sides seem to be getting further apart.  The council thinks those who didn't vote for strike action should be allowed to do their work, and is taking legal advice.  The GMB is consulting members working in refuse collection in other local authorities.  Its General Secretary is taking a direct interest.

At some stage, this dispute will be resolved, and the bin workers will return to work with better pay and improved facilities.  The issue will be how much it all costs.  The Council will need to find the money from somewhere to foot the bill.  

Second, when is a new hospital not a new hospital?

Boris Johnson made his announcement about hospitals back last year.  Eastbourne would have one of the 40 brand new hospitals promised for the country.  Local Conservative MPs celebrated.  They made much of their roles in securing the outcome.  

When we heard the news, our first thought was where in the town this brand new hospital might appear.  And what would happen to the old District General Hospital.  Would it go the way of St.Mary's, the Princess Alice or even the old TB hospital by the Downs - converted into flats, or knocked down?

We now know that the words "new hospital" have quite a broad meaning in the minds of officials in the Department of Health and Social Care.   They extend to "major refurbishment and alteration of all but building frame or main structure, delivering a significant extension to useful life..."

A more prosaic account of what is proposed is found in the statements of the East Sussex Healthcare Trust, the NHS body which runs the DGH and other hospitals across the county. What is planned is a major and much-needed overhaul of the hospital's ageing estate.  

Whether these plans will satisfy Eastbourne residents is another matter.  The Trust provides acute health care services to over half a million people in East Sussex and beyond, primarily through the DGH and the Conquest in Hastings.  It regards the DGH not as Eastbourne's hospital, but as a District hospital that happens to be in Eastbourne.  Its past efforts to arrange services in what it sees as the most effective way have run up against a highly energetic local group, "Save the DGH", endorsed by local politicians of all parties, and one which campaigns against any proposal to move core services from the town.

Talking of politicians, we continue to look for signs of what might happen here in the next general election.

We came across a couple of MRP polls.  These aim to reflect voting intention at the constituency level.  MRP stands for "multilevel regression and post-stratification".   We won't pretend to understand what this really means.  We think it's the use of very big samples, where lots of demographic detail is obtained alongside voting intention.  The voting intention is then projected onto a constituency population, matching the demographic detail to surveys by the Office of National Statistics and the Census.

(Or something like that).

The technique has a proven record of spotting otherwise unlikely developments - like the 2017 Labour surges in Canterbury and Kensington.  So we were interested in what these polls - conducted by Survation and Focaldata - were showing in southern coastal towns similar to Eastbourne.  They show growing Labour strength, with the party standing to pull off dramatic wins in the two Bournemouth seats, and one of those in Worthing.  This is on top of holds in Brighton, wins in Hastings and also one of the Thanet seats.  Labour is becoming a party of the south coast seaside town.  

What they don't suggest is any change in Eastbourne, at least not yet.  Both show narrow Tory holds.  In one of them, Labour comes out in second place, and that does not sound right.  

Either way, we'll watch for more of these.  In the meantime, have a good week.