Inferior version of Visitor Centre approved for Hastings Country Park

It took 11 minutes for Hastings Borough Council to decide that its application for a Visitor Centre was entirely acceptable. Bernard McGinley finds that you don’t need a sewage engineer to know which way the wind blows.

At the Planning Committee meeting on Wednesday 6 March, the Committee rapidly found that its application was deserving of approval, no questions asked.

The case (planning ref HS/FA/17/01018) was discussed in HOT earlier in: A room with a view to lowering standards.  The innovative – or incoherent – approach taken in the Visitor Centre case remains a cause of wonder, on what exactly is a Minor Material Amendment (MMA) – and what is a Non-Material Amendment (NMA)?

In the briefing by the planning services manager, it was explained that the site’s septic tank is not a septic tank but a ‘subterranean packaged sewage treatment plant’. The technical drawing says ‘septic tank’, as do related documents. It was also emphasised in passing that the planning permission for the main permission, HS/FA/14/01033, was live, though actually it had expired the previous day.

The objections of the High Weald AONB Unit of February 2018 (made by a qualified planner) went unmentioned:

Whilst this application is advertised as being a variation of a condition, it is clearly a significant change in the design and specification of the proposed Visitor Centre. It is for Hastings Borough Council to satisfy itself that this type of application is legally appropriate for the changes proposed. However, I am concerned that one practical implication of the process chosen is that there is no documentation with the application which explains the proposed changes or their rationale. If dealt with as a fresh full planning application it would have been accompanied by a Design and Access Statement, Planning Statement and Landscape Assessment which would have set out the justification for the proposed design and how this conserves and enhances the High Weald AONB.

In the absence of such information it is difficult to see how Hastings Borough Council can meet its responsibilities in respect of AONBs. Section 85 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 requires local authorities to have regard to ‘the purpose of conserving and enhancing the natural beauty of AONBs’ in making decisions that affect the designated area.  The National Planning Policy Framework paragraph 115 requires great weight to be given to conserving landscape and scenic beauty in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which have the highest status of protection in relation to landscape and scenic beauty. The conservation of wildlife and cultural heritage are important considerations in all these areas.

In response to the briefing the Council members said nothing. There were no questions, not even about design changes or procedural problems so often discussed in the case files. The Chair thought it was “quite exciting really”.

The decision was unanimous. One Councillor was clear, and while seconding the motion to approve the application, took the opportunity to comment:  

I’m getting sick and tired in objections of people saying that things aren’t minor amendments when they clearly are.  These are minor amendments: same footprint, same site, same look of the building really, apart from the bits on top. So please, if you’re going to object to a planning application, at least make it factual rather than making stuff up.

Clear and factual

Trying to be clear and factual leads to other relevant details. The Planning Officers’ Society has guidance about Minor Material Amendments. Criteria include whether it is a a very small change proposed – in this case, no – and if it does not vary significantly from what was described on the planning permission  – it does – or if it does not conflict with any conditions on the permission – again, it does.

A separate list of the types of  material changes for which a fresh application would be expected also applies well to the Visitor Centre application:  various changes including changes that would affect objections to the original proposal.

HBC has been this way before. In December 2014, in the wake of the planning cock-ups that caused the ‘Bunker’ in the Country Park (and the ensuing outcry), HBC Cabinet agreed unanimously

53. The council should adopt new guidelines on what constitutes a minor amendment (section 73a) and what constitutes a full application (section 91).

The reforms were known as the Planning Improvement Implementation Plan (PIIP), and the Council is unable to explain their status, claiming that they were/ are informal guidelines.    

Shapeshifting in Hastings

Is it a Minor Material Amendment because of the ‘same look of the building really, apart from the bits on top’?  No: many details were changed, some suppressed or euphemised, such as  windows, height, design, materials, lighting and landscaping, including the famous upstairs terrasse, which is no more proposed.

A scrutiny of the technical drawings of the four Visitor Centre cases (HS/CD/17/01101 and HS/NM/18/00059 being the others) is surprisingly instructive in the matter of ’making stuff up’.  Although the site of the Visitor Centre has not changed, its boundaries have.

The changes make it possible to accommodate the surface water drainage system, the part of the development that was supposedly a ‘Non-Material Amendment’. The Location Plan for HS/FA/14/01033 and HS/NM/18/00059 shows the approved redline area  — but the new drainage plan submitted with HS/CD/17/01101 (in Proposed Plans) shows a bridge, ditch, swale and scrapes outside of the approved redline area.

(Similarly, the officers’ report for HS/NM/18/00059 (it was a delegated decision) stated that the proposal ‘would not alter the development as previously approved’.  Unfortunately it did, and the new plans submitted in respect of foul and surface water drainage also conflicted with the approved plans, which show a different redline area and a foul disposal connection to the main sewer.)  

Like the bits on top, the bits underground at the proposed Visitor Centre have been comprehensively changed, by a procedural sleight of hand, to go round planning permission HS/FA/14/01033.  This application sought to connect to nearby existing main drains to service the new building’s foul and waste water. That now won’t happen, and there hasn’t been the bother of a fresh application or consultation, or much scrutiny or publicity.

Natural England is a statutory consultee for planning applications potentially affecting Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), which the Country Park has. On 1 March they asked to be consulted again — and apparently haven’t been.

None of this is good enough for Hastings.

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