Public art ideas needed for seafront promenade

An appeal has gone out to find artists to come up with ideas to liven up a 1930s promenade on Hastings seafront.

Bottle Alley, designed by borough engineer Sidney Little, is a covered walkway with 113 concrete columns.

Hastings Borough Council said a current art installation, Wavelengths, had been in place since 2017, but the paintwork now needed "revisiting" and it was using the opportunity to seek new designs.

The walkway has "dramatic seasonal variation", the council added, with intense summer sunlight and high footfall, harsh winter storms with salt spray and damp, and shifting light levels all year.

Any artwork needs either to withstand the conditions or respond creatively to them, and the total budget has been set at £30,000.

Bottle Alley provides a key pedestrian route from the pier to Warrior Square and was built as part of a "revolutionary double deck promenade" by Little, who became known as the "concrete king", the council website said.

It takes its name from the pieces of multi-coloured glass bottles embedded in the concrete panels along its length.

The original design included glazed shutters, but only the tracks remain.

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