Before 1997 the Tories, then in control both nationally and locally, had to look up the definition of "regeneration". Apart from a small scale grant known as Single Regeneration Budget (I think it was around £3m and for which the then Tory MP was feted by "The Observer" as Father Christmas!) the town was left to its own resources.

In the past ten years since I have been MP we have seen more than £100m in direct Government aid on social and structural changes, including a new rail station, the new University Centre and, on our seafront, abandoned derelict hotels now back in use. More money still has been invested by the private sector, responding to that Government initiative.

In the town centre Lacuna Place is now nearing completion and by Christmas we will have a new town square. £92m of Government investment will see a new college of further education on the Station Plaza site, alongside a £15m new health centre (again, Government funded). In addition £80m (about 90%) of the cost of the new link road has been allocated directly from Labour Government funds.

Now in the next stage of regeneration the Government, through SEEDA, quite rightly look to other sources of investment as well as direct Government grants. Sea Space has certainly asked for £23m over the coming three years to, as you put it, "pour" into schemes aimed at improving the town but that is a wish list and, in the present economic climate, it is clear that we will not get it all.

I will do my best to ensure we get as much as we can but at the moment no decision has been reached. Indeed, not even the £12m you refer to has been agreed although there will be some funding. One would have expected the Conservative Party, above all, to be looking for private partnership funding as well.

In any event, this very week the Government have committed a further £2m to East Sussex to develop and improve play areas across the county, including Hastings, and on Tuesday a further direct Government grant of £750,000 was agreed from the Community Assets Programme to renovate Jackson Hall in Hastings to provide a new home for the voluntary/ community sector, some of whom will be displaced by the Priory Quarter development.

It might suit the Tory propagandist to talk down Hastings and claim some failure on the part of Government to match its commitment in hard cash but it's certainly not true. I also think most people understand that the Tories call for a "smaller State" means what it always has, namely this sort of public investment would soon come to an end. Why don't we ask the Tories - how much would you commit to Hastings?