Hastings is well connected on the inside and awkward to leave. The buses run all day. Broadband is mostly gigabit-ready. Trains go to London, Brighton and Ashford. The motorway never quite made it this far. It's a town built for staying put, which is roughly what most of its commuters have decided to do.
The railway gives the town four stations of its own: West St Leonards, St Leonards Warrior Square, Hastings and Ore, with lines running to London, along the coast to Brighton and across the marsh to Ashford. At the 2021 Census, only about 3% of working residents took the train to work. The buses are thick on the ground, with 515 stops across the area, yet only about 3% of workers commuted by bus. Plenty of network, not many regular passengers.
The commute mix tells the story better. About 46% of working residents drove to work at the 2021 Census and about 27% worked from home, with walking at about 11% and cycling at about 1%. Around 29% of households have no car, and about 28% have two or more. So the town divides into drivers, home-workers and a sizeable car-free minority who rely on everything being close. Hastings is the most populous urban area in Britain without a direct dual-carriageway link to the motorway network, which explains a lot about why the laptop won.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics put the nearest town centre about 10 minutes away by car, 18 by public transport, 15 by bike and 30 on foot. These are modelled figures for the area as a whole, not a route from any particular front door. Half an hour's walk into town is the honest cost of a place spread over hills.
Everyday destinations are mostly close. A GP is about 8 minutes by car, 13 on foot and 11 by public transport. A food store is about 8 minutes' walk or 7 by car. A hospital takes about 13 minutes by car and 25 by public transport. Employment is the outlier: about 7 minutes by car but around 54 by public transport. The public transport times date from 2019 and services have been cut since, so trust the car and walking figures more than the bus ones. That 54-minute figure is why the car park at work matters more than the bus timetable.
The bus service itself is current, and it's a service rather than a gesture. The average stop sees about 78 scheduled departures on a weekday and around 5 an hour at peak, and 98% of stops get at least some weekend service. A stop with two buses a day is decoration. These aren't that.
Broadband is strong. Gigabit-capable connections reach about 76% of premises, the same share as ultrafast, and superfast reaches about 99%. No premises fall below the universal service minimum. For a town where more than a quarter work from home, that matters more than the train timetable.
Mobile coverage is complete: 4G or 5G from at least one operator and from every operator reaches 100% of the area on the published mapping.
The cost of being well connected by road is noise. About 68% of postcodes sit near or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official noise mapping treats it as significant, and the loudest band reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate and much smaller source, barely registering. What a given bedroom sounds like depends on the window, the wall and which side of the house faces the road, so listen for yourself at a viewing.
Electric car charging is thin. The area has 11 public charge points with 28 connectors between them, and 6 of those are rapid. With that few rapid units, charging is something to plan around, not something you do while picking up the shopping.
Hastings is better connected than its reputation: buses, broadband and everyday journeys hold up well. The weak link is the road and rail route out of town, which is fine for anyone whose job is a laptop and less fine for anyone whose job is in London.