Editing Hastings (section)

==Governance==
[[File:EastSussexHastings.png|thumb|right|Borough of Hastings, shown within East Sussex]]

{{See also|Hastings and Rye (UK Parliament constituency)|Hastings Borough Council}}
Hastings returned two [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Members of Parliament]] (MPs) from the 14th century until 1885, since when it has returned one. Since 1983, it has been part of the [[Hastings and Rye (UK Parliament constituency)|parliamentary constituency of Hastings and Rye]]; the current MP, since [[2024 United Kingdom general election|July 2024]], is [[Helena Dollimore]] of the [[Labour and Co-operative Party]]. Prior to 1983, the town formed the [[Hastings (UK Parliament constituency)|Hastings parliamentary constituency]] by itself.

Hastings, it is thought, was a Saxon town before the arrival of the Normans: the [[Domesday Book]] refers to a ''new Borough'': as a borough, Hastings had a corporation consisting of a "bailiff, jurats, and commonalty".<ref name="Hastings Past"/> Its importance was such that it also gave its name to one of the six [[Rape (county subdivision)|Rapes]] or administrative districts of Sussex.

[[File:Hastings Town Hall - geograph.org.uk - 1197481.jpg|thumb|left|[[Hastings Town Hall]]]]
By a Charter of [[Elizabeth I]] in 1589 the bailiff was replaced by a mayor, by which time the town's importance was dwindling. In the [[Georgian era]], patronage of such seaside places (such as nearby [[Brighton]]) gave it a new lease of life so that, when the time came with the reform of English local government in 1888, Hastings became a [[County Borough]], responsible for all its local services, independent of the surrounding county, then Sussex (East); less than one hundred years later, [[Local Government Act 1972|in 1974]], that status was abolished.

[[Hastings Borough Council]] is now in the second tier of local government, below [[East Sussex County Council]].