Archery Ground, Summer 2024

Proposal to cram Archery Ground to the max — just like old times

Early this century, it was proposed to cover the Hastings College site within Archery Road with as very many units as possible. The achievements of James and Decimus Burton were not considerations. Local people opposed the plans for years, using many person-hours. Bernard McGinley reports on a bruising business.

Eventually Marcus Beale Architects came up with a new plan for the site, one that would reuse well Decimus’s listed Archery Villas. Marcus Beale himself came to the Assembly Rooms to explain the new proposals. There were legal hearings, arguments and counterarguments. The new masterplan was developed, and approved. Since that agreement there have been many changes made by the developers, Gemselect. A ninth case is pending, about squeezing in five more flats — which is far from neighbourly. Will Hastings Borough Council (HBC) roll over yet again? 

The HBC Conservation Officer said of the Archery Ground (a large part of the St Leonards West Conservation Area) that it was

in the heart of a nationally important architecturally designed historic settlement, and both the planning authority and the developers have a huge responsibility to do the right thing.

Some of the site is now known as Archery Gardens, and the Beale houses are built. At the north of the site, several apartment blocks were included, now nearing completion. However unilateral action by the developer is causing resentment.

The key and present case is HS/FA/24/00549. Though it seems like a variation, it is better understood as a retrospective application. Take a deep breath:

HS/FA/24/00549 | Variation of condition 3 (approved plans) of Planning Permission HS/FA/15/00175 (as varied by Planning Permission HS/FA/17/00439, HS/FA/18/00291, HS/FA/20/00369 and HS/FA/22/00635) (Conversion of Grade II listed building to create 24 units, demolition of all other structures and erection of 97 residential units, with associated cycle and car parking spaces, new vehicular access from Archery Road, associated landscaping and enabling works) – Amendment to Blocks A and B to create 5 additional flats and associated external alterations and relocation of bin/cycle stores. | Site of former Hastings College of Arts and Technology, Archery Road, St Leonards-on-sea, TN38 0HX

The modern planning history of the site goes back to the proposals for 163 units on site (359 people and their cars on a small site), and also planning application HS/FA/09/00482, whose demolition of the college was approved on the grounds that it really wasn’t very good. The HBC committee report (June 2012) notoriously commented:

Architectural quality
. . . the existing college buildings have no architectural quality that is worth preserving (Policy C2). The central slab block in particular is of a hugely unsympathetic appearance and poor architectural quality.

That it got planning permission reflects on HBC’s procedures, less rigorous than often supposed, then and still. The 2009 application for 146 units was eventually refused by the Planning Inspectorate (ref: APP/B1415/A/12/2180227):

58.  I am also not persuaded that the blocks would, in fact, have a positive relationship with Archery Gardens. . . .

74.  The architecture would not, I believe, be locally distinctive and would not incorporate any particular innovative or attractive features, thereby failing to take the opportunity to provide something worthy of this important site. . . .

102.  I have found that the scheme would conflict with the statutory duties requiring the protection of the setting of listed buildings and ensuring that the character or appearance of the St Leonards West and the Burtons’ St Leonards Conservation Areas would be preserved or enhanced. . . .

In 2014, after long friction and controversy case HS/FA/13/00590 was submitted, for 121 units. It was approved with conditions. Then came case HS/FA/15/00175 which was vast: hundreds of documents and scores of comments. The numerous later amending cases added more complexity.

Gemselect snags

In 2015, Gemselect became the owners and developers of the site. Their website shows the buildings of Decimus Burton and Marcus Beale but not the blocks of flats at the high back of the site.

The practice began of submitting ‘variations of changes’ to the application. Objections followed, including complaints of watering down the design specifications, with cheap and inferior materials substituted: quality worsened, designs coarsened. Archery Ground work started prematurely without meeting planning preconditions. In the autumn of 2018, Council officers intervened to stop unauthorised work on protected trees at the Archery Ground site.

Chopping and changing by the developers was a well worn theme. Gemselect kept up this practice relentlessly. Storage areas were proposed for conversion to living accommodation. (The list of cases is in ‘The record’ below.)

In 2017 HBC issued a Temporary Stop Notice (EN/17/00072) to Gemselect because of the breaches of planning control:

(3) THE REASONS FOR ISSUING THIS NOTICE

•  Conditions 6, 7a, 7b, 7c, 7d, 7e, 7f, 7g, 7h, 7j, 7k, 7l, 7n, 7p (i), 7p (iii), 7q (i), 7q (ii), 7q, 7r, 12, 14, 17, 18 and 34 of planning consent HS/FA/15/00175 have not been discharged.

•  It is considered expedient to halt the breach of planning control until such time as the planning situation has been resolved to the satisfaction of the local planning authority.

(Gemselect has wider form in this regard — a chequered record, in troubled HBC applications such as:

HS/FA/10/00427:  awarded a breach of condition notice

HS/CD/13/00873:  for discharge of conditions

HS/CD/14/00043:  a catalogue of variation of design applications and a failure to supply adequate details to discharge conditions re Osborne House on The Ridge.)

Other issues about the Archery Ground as it took shape were the misuse of minor amendments and Council inconsistency: the developer asked for the application to be dealt with under s.73 of the 1990 Town & Country Planning Act, which allows existing conditions to be amended without the need to submit a full planning application.  Also there was the loss of affordable housing, which went from 56% down to the legal minimum of 25%, without any viability assessment. Others disputed the procedure, and the use of s.73 and ‘minor material amendment’. HBC disagreed without actually discussing the matter. (Regarding the notorious Fern Road development, the planning department’s line – then – was that a ‘minor amendment is acceptable as long as the number of units does not change’.)

Regarding the present live case, the developer’s agent’s letter of 26 July 2024 accompanying the s.73 application notes – perhaps somewhat defensively – that under HS/FA/18/00291, the Affordable Housing component was ‘fully policy compliant’. The same letter asserts ‘There is no need for a Design and Access Statement’, adding later:

The proposals will help achieve this by utilising areas that were previously ‘wasted’ and by optimizing the efficient use of this part of the site.

So after all these years of scrutiny and revision, wasted space was discovered, allegedly.  Alternatively it’s a clear case of attempted overdevelopment.

Cakery

Although the five extra flats are excused in this live case on the basis that the units (117) are less than the permission for 121 (in HS/FA/15/00175), this however ignores that the 121 was revised down to 109 because of previous approved amendments. The number was revised downwards by a s.73 application (HS/FA/18/00291) to accommodate larger units in the conversion of Decimus Burton’s Archery Villas, Grade 2 listed. Following that space adjustment, the units are going up again. There’s an element of cakery here: having it, eating it. In addition there’s juggling of parking spaces, and cycle and bin stores.

Case HS/LB/20/00087 was approved with conditions. HS/FA/20/00369 was approved by planning officers. Case HS/FA/20/00869 proposed numerous balcony changes until the Conservation Officer reached a finding of

Objection — substantial harm.

There was no stated resolution to the case, which is strange.

In 2023 application HS/FA/22/00635 was approved on a delegated basis for comparable changes.

Local comments

Residents are highly dissatisfied with the latest changes, application HS/FA/24/00549. Comments include:

The ground floor flats will directly look out on the side passageway and the rubbish and recycling bins to my property. I question the ‘Right to Light’ of this proposal. Has this been modelled and demonstrated?

The proposal has been poorly thought out, not consulted on and already constructed by a greedy developer trying to squeeze more development into the scheme.

The bin stores have been moved in this proposal. 

Another observed:

The additional 5 units mean that to comply with policy H3 additional affordable housing contributions have to be made. 

Someone else commented

Residents are only aware of the plans as we noticed walls were being erected a few weeks ago where under the original plans there should be parking spaces. When we queried this with the developer, we were told they had submitted an application to vary the plans to remove the four parking spaces on Archery Gardens, including two disabled bays.

Another local resident wrote very clearly:

The developer has been presumptuous and already constructed these additional flats without permission in place. They have chosen not to directly engage with neighbours to discuss proposals and canvas support.

The Gemselect agent was asked to comment on these allegations, but has not. Traffic and parking arrangements remain unclear.

The record

The battle over development was strenuously fought, and eventually a settlement was arrived at. Since then, the pattern of reneging is very clear. The Gemselect Archery Ground cases since 2015 are these:

HS/FA/15/00107 Variation of conditions 3 (approved drawings) and 6 (bridge details) of Planning Permission HS/FA/13/00590

HS/FA/17/00439 Variation of condition (3): Approved plans of planning application HS/FA/15/00175

HS/FA/18/00291 Variation of Conditions 3 (Approved Plans) and 34 (Affordable housing) of Planning Permission HS/FA/15/00175

HS/LB/18/00447 Internal and external alterations to facilitate conversion to form 12 residential dwelling units. See Heritage Statement for a summary of the proposals.

HS/LB/20/00087 Various amendments to internal layout of conversion scheme Various amendments to internal layout of conversion scheme (HS/LB/18/00447)

HS/FA/20/00369 Variation of condition 3 (approved plans) of planning permission HS/FA/15/00175

HS/LB/20/00869 Variation of condition 1 (approved plans) Amendment – Replace drawing C2080 C with C2080 E, and removal of condition 24 (details of canopy/ balcony) of Listed Building Consent HS/LB/20/00087

HS/FA/22/00635 Variation of condition 3 (approved plans) of Planning Permission HS/FA/15/00175

HS/FA/24/00549 Variation of condition 3 (approved plans) of Planning Permission HS/FA/15/000175.

Other than necessary applications for Discharge of Conditions, and Listed Building Consent, there is a steady pattern of Variations of Conditions. This is a form of gaming the system. There was a hard-reached agreement about the future of the Archery Ground, and it has been repeatedly reneged on. Sensitivity to the Conservation Area, its quality and special interest, has been conspicuously absent.

Does HBC planning department have the resources to deal with this deluge of detail and adjustment, or inclination to even if it did? (Five extra flats are easy to understand.) The record of the Council’s enforcement operation in the last decade suggests perhaps not — in which case local planning regulation is a sham, at least in part. HBC could crisply refuse this application if they were minded to.

Further comments can be emailed to the casefile for application HS/FA/24/00549, and statements emailed to dccomments@hastings.gov.uk

The timeframe for this matter is not known.

(Bernard McGinley is a member of the Burtons’ St Leonards Society)

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