Hastings Rural District Council: building control plans

Plans submitted to the Council for approval under bylaws for the regulation of new buildings. They are stored in envelopes which also contain application forms, surveyor's reports on the plans, certificates as to water supply, reports from an Advisory Panel of the South East Society of Architects and the Royal Institute of British Architects, and correspondence

At first the plans seem to have been identified only by the date of the monthly meeting of the Council to which they were submitted. But in 1930 or so they were sorted into parishes and allotted, in red ink, references composed of the parish name and a serial number. Nearly all the plans approved up to that date received this treatment and were numbered in a roughly geographical sequence regardless of their chronology: thus we have Ore 1-7, Winchelsea Road; Ore 8-9, Rock Lane; Ore 10-26, Old London Road; Ore 27-29, Stonestile Lane; Ore 30-56, Great Ridge Estate etc. There is no numerical list of these plans, which are indexed by place in the first part of the register (DR/A/4/8).

Plans approved between January 1931 and March 1934 have been given a second reference number which is written on their envelopes in black ink alongside their parish classification. These reference numbers were allotted chronologically and the second part of the register (DR/A/4/8) contains a numerical list of them with details of owners' names, dates of approval of plans, situations of buildings and dates of commencement and completion. These plans are stored in their chronological sequence but 'dummies' have been placed in parish reference number order giving the references under which they are to be found. Some plans have evidently never been numbered and they have been stored at the end of the sequence for the parish to which each relates.

Hastings Rural District Council became part of the enlarged Battle Rural District Council in 1934.