Rother Local Plan 2025-2042 – Development Strategy and Site Allocations

Response to Question 20: Proposed Policy BX2 – Bexhill Cultural Area Rother Local Plan 2025–2042: Development Strategy and Site Allocations Submitted on behalf of Bexhill Museum

Bexhill Museum is a small, volunteer-run charitable trust and we're pleased to have the opportunity to respond to this consultation. We support Policy BX2 and want to use this response both to welcome what it offers and to make the case for the museum's place within it.

*The museum as part of the Cultural Area*

The supporting text names Bexhill Museum as part of the seafront cultural offer, connected to the De La Warr Pavilion via West Parade, and we're glad it does. But we'd ask that this relationship is treated as more than a geographical footnote. The museum sits at the western end of a natural cultural route along the seafront. With the kind of public realm investment this policy supports, that route could become a coherent visitor experience — from the beach, through the Pavilion, along West Parade, to the museum. We'd welcome the Council's support in making that a reality, whether through signage, public realm design, or the Infrastructure Delivery Plan.

*What the protection clause means for us*

The commitment to resist the loss of significant cultural uses matters a great deal to a small organisation like ours. We'd ask that it's applied broadly enough to protect community museums and volunteer-led cultural venues — not just commercially operated ones. For us, that protection isn't abstract; it's about the long-term security of a building and a collection that belongs to this town.

*We complement the Pavilion — we don't compete with it*

The De La Warr Pavilion is a world-class venue and we're proud to be its neighbour. But the museum does something different: we hold the story of the town itself. A cultural area that has both is richer and more interesting for visitors, and more compelling to funders and partners. We'd like to see the policy's supporting text reflect that diversity more explicitly, rather than treating the Pavilion as the sole cultural asset around which everything else orbits.

*Visitor accommodation*

We strongly support the encouragement of high-quality visitor accommodation near the Cultural Area. Overnight visitors are far more likely to visit a local museum than day-trippers. More people staying in Bexhill means more people walking through our doors.

*West Parade and connectivity*

We'd ask that any public realm improvements delivered under this policy include the West Parade frontage in their scope. The museum should be visible, legible and easy to reach as part of the seafront offer — not an afterthought at the end of the promenade.

*Looking ahead to 2028*

Bexhill is bidding for Town of Culture status in 2028, and the museum is an active part of that ambition through the Bexhill Cultural Network. Policy BX2 provides the planning foundation for that work. We'd welcome an explicit acknowledgement in the final policy of the 2028 cultural programme, so that it can be treated as a relevant consideration for decisions made within the Cultural Area during the plan period.

*"Five Asks" from Bexhill Museum*

We'd like to take this opportunity to put five broader asks on record — not specific to Policy BX2, but relevant to how Rother District Council plans for and supports community cultural infrastructure across the plan period.

1. Make support visible. A short annual statement — attached to the Council's budget or strategy — setting out what RDC provides to museums and heritage organisations (cash and in-kind) and what it expects in return. Transparency benefits both sides.

2. Clarify relationships. Where the Council has agreements with cultural organisations, a core-plus-schedules structure would help: shared purpose in one place, practicalities — premises, reporting, review points — in another. It makes partnerships easier to manage and easier to hand on.

3. Protect community benefit during devolution. As assets and services devolve, safeguards should be built in from the start: who carries maintenance liabilities, what minimum public access standards apply, and where risk sits. These questions are easier to answer before devolution than after.

4. Recognise independent culture as infrastructure. Volunteer-run museums and heritage organisations aren't peripheral to the visitor economy and civic identity — they're part of the foundation that larger cultural offers sit on. The Local Plan should name them as such.

5. Build culture into wellbeing and resilience thinking. Museums and heritage should be routinely considered in equalities and socio-economic impact work, not added as an afterthought. They are community resilience assets, and the plan period should treat them that way.

We support this policy and hope it marks the beginning of a more joined-up approach to Bexhill's cultural infrastructure — one that recognises the full range of what this town has to offer.