Art's a burning issue here

Ah, Bonfire Night! Rosy-cheeked children warming mittened hands by the fire. Wispy-haired grandfathers munching on toffee apples with their dentures. The toasty smell of burning tinder. The oohs and aaahs as fireworks splutter brightly into the sky. It's all so jolly and adorably English.

Except in Hastings. Here Bonfire Night is a battleground, a chance to vent spleen and bubble over with public indignation. Most people are content to burn effigies of Guy Fawkes, but not the Hastings Borough Bonfire Society. Last year a symbolic wheelie bin was burned in opposition to a new council waste management system. At the height of foot and mouth, the Hastings bonfire was stoked up with a papier-maché beefburger. This year it became the focal point for a bitter row over plans by the Jerwood Foundation to build an art gallery over the coach station. The Bonfire Society enterprisingly constructed a model of the proposed gallery and then set it alight. 'This is just another in a string of things that people are trying to foist on us,' explained Keith Leech, the society's honorary president.

The gallery is the latest in a series of attempts to reinvigorate seaside towns though art. In Eastbourne a new home for the Towner Gallery will shortly open over a disused car park. In Margate, the Turner Contemporary arts organisation is building a permanent base. St Ives has the Tate. And Folkestone hosted a triennial this summer, showing the work of 22 artists including Tracey Emin.

The £4m Hastings scheme would, say its supporters, regenerate the area, attract visitors and make important works of modern British art accessible to the public. Alan Grieve, chairman of the Jerwood Foundation, has insisted that 'the gallery, if realised, would become a valued resource for the local community and contribute strongly to the regeneration of Hastings'. The leader of the Borough Council calls it 'a very exciting prospect for the town'.

But some locals are unconvinced. They say the gallery will be built in the heart of the Old Town, directly on top of a busy coach park, and may endanger the future of fishermen who own the land, called the Stade - a word that dates back to 1066 and means 'landing place'. 'Traders in the Old Town are largely against this scheme because they cannot see any benefit in it for them,' protester Ion Castro told the Hastings Observer last week. 'There is also concern among host families of foreign students [who are dropped off by coach to stay in the town], and an underlying feeling that the council is trying to force fishermen off the Stade.'

Sid Beynon of the Hastings Arts Forum said he supported the idea of a Jerwood gallery, 'but they could be a bit more malleable in their demands. The site is a bit awkward, although as an artist myself I recognise the importance of the Jerwood coming to town.'

Beynon was unperturbed by the effigy-burning. 'They've burnt the Pope in the past, and Gaddafi. I think it was an expression of genuine concern and upset.'

In Todds Gallery on the High Street they were taking a more positive approach. According to one member of staff, the effigy was, in its own way, quite artistic. 'You can choose to be horrified by it or you can see it as quite a careful creative response.'

If only they hadn't burned it, the effigy could have been touted as a post-modern work of insightful brilliance. Perhaps the Jerwood Foundation would have added it to its collection.