Sex on Sea - Hastings' shame

Another tarnishing of Hastings with this "Sex-on-Sea" image was not welcomed by council and leisure bosses fed up with the town being portrayed in a bad light.

Official figures show the number of girls aged 15-17 getting pregnant in Hastings is 61.3 per 1000 - that's nearly one in 16.

Only Blackpool beats us among seaside resorts, with 74.8 per 1000, and the national average is 42.6.

In this new survey carried out for the Department of Education during the last two years, experts from Hull, Liverpool and Brighton Universities questioned hundreds of school pupils and young mums in seaside resorts and concluded that the carnival atmosphere of fun in the sun at the seaside - often fuelled by alcohol - led to a "sense of detachment" and "suspension of reality" and many girls threw caution to the wind.

The report says girls from the resorts and nearby rural areas are attracted by the atmosphere, then meet older seasonal workers and tourists looking for sex.

Gary Craig, professor of social justice at Hull University, said: "This transient labour market makes casual relationships likely, which can go wrong with young women getting pregnant.

"We have irrefutable evidence that a number of night clubs, discos or whatever, are made attractive to young women, with such things as free entry and free availability of alcohol, in order to be able to attract older male clientele."

He could not say whether this happened in Hastings as he promised interviewees their resorts would not be identified.

The report has attracted widespread national newspaper and television publicity, and council leader Jeremy Birch commented: "The quality of the some of the reporting was pretty shoddy. Any negative publicity is disappointing but it just shows how vital it is that Hastings revives. This is not telling us anything we didn't know, and reducing teenage conception rates is one of the key targets that all the agencies in the town have signed up to, and the thrust of much publicity we have had lately is that Hastings is changing."

Kim Johnson, managing director of Waves Nightclub in George Street, hit out at suggestions that irresponsible licensees - especially of nightclubs - could be to blame.

"I and my management have been most concerned at the plethora of recent media coverage related to 'binge drinking', lager lout-ettes', under-age pregnancies and general references to 'yobbish' behaviour amongst younger people."

He said implications that under-age girls are getting into clubs and being chatted up is a slight on him and other licensees, who are subject to strict checks, as well as on the police and licensing authorities.

"Clubs are compelled by law to check the age of customers at entry and we also have to check at the bar."

Mr Johnson said the survey seemed to have been done in "some of the most socially-deprived" coastal regions, and socio-economic conditions were much more likely to be the cause of so many teenage pregnancies than nightclubs.

Harry O'Sullivan, spokesman for TFB Music and Leisure which owns the Crypt and the Brass Monkey, said: "We would agree with the article's conclusion that the carnivalesque atmosphere in seaside towns, and for that matter in any holiday destination, probably accounts for a casual approach to sex leading to increased teenage pregnancies.

"However, we would question the validity of the argument that some clubs have a 'policy' of attracting underage girls in the hope of increasing custom.

"While we can only speak from our own point of view it is obviously illegal and indeed immoral to adopt such a practice."