Council planners recommend approval for plastic lampposts on Pier: meeting on Wednesday

The retrospective application for fake-olde plastic wobbly lampposts on Grade 2 listed Hastings Pier is up for planning permission at a planning committee next Wednesday 14 August. The case reference is HS/FA/24/00046. Hastings Borough Council (HBC) planning officers have recommended ‘Grant Full Planning Permission’. The issue has been covered in HOT by Bernard McGinley, who wonders about the mess of pottage.

The Pier case is retrospective. So was its companion case, HS/LB/24/00047 for Listed Building Consent (LBC), which was approved in June (as HOT reported). Separation of the cases was a departure from usual practice.

Application Form question 10 for case 46 is:

Do the proposed works include alterations to a listed building?

It goes unanswered, and the Council accepts that. The four subsequent questions in the section are also ignored (also supinely accepted).

The application is poor. The ‘Heritage Statement & Statement of Significance’ is particularly unconvincing, in sections 7 and 8 about how acceptable these lampposts are. The Heritage Statement mentions (par 1.3) ‘the installation of lamp furniture to the historic decking area only’. There is no ‘historic decking area’. It was destroyed by fire in 2010. The redesigned and rebuilt Pier reopened in 2016, modern not fake-Victorian.

 

‘A design award’

The planning officers’ Recommendation for HS/FA/24/00046 is to approve planning permission.

Like the application, the committee report is poor — for instance describing the RIBA Stirling Prize as ‘a design award’. Hastings’ winning of the 2017 architectural Oscar for the best building in the country deserves more than that.

The report’s Section 4 (‘Representations’) is very short, involving distortion and suppression of previous objections made, including observation of the many policy breaches. As well as suppressing mentions of breached policies and clear faults of the application, the report omits informed comments on concerns about the proposed repairs.

The report states:

the Victorian-style of lamp column provided is in keeping with the character of this Victorian pier and is authentic as it is evidenced within the heritage statement.

and

the Victorian-style lamp columns installed on the Pier are in keeping with the historic and architectural character of Hastings Pier.

The Victorian pier has been through several major changes, notably when its architectural character changed about 10 years ago, to national and international acclaim. That previous Victorian Pier is no longer visible to visitors and mostly no longer exists. (See ‘Sub- meets super-‘ below.)

The authenticity of fake-olde plastic wobbly lampposts remains fictitious, imaginary. What the Heritage Statement ‘evidences’ is some duplication and brazenness — including wishful thinking about the ‘historic decking area’. That Victorian Pier no longer exists. It follows that the assertions are highly unpersuasive:

8.4 New street lamps have been installed along the historic decking area of the pier. These have been chosen to have a Victorian character and are not an incongruous addition to the pier.

. . .

8.6 Similarly, there has been no change to the evidential value of the pier as a result of the works. The materials and methods are appropriate to the age and construction techniques of the structure . . .

There is no ‘historic decking area’. Formal guidance is that a listed building in a Conservation Area should have appropriate materials. Reproduction Victorian lampposts should be cast iron, not plastic (aka ‘resin’). These lampposts neither sustain nor enhance the Conservation Area that they disfigure. The committee report regards the change as ‘pragmatic’. ‘Cheap’ would be more accurate, or ‘ugly’. Apparently ‘pragmatic’ is the new ‘good enough for Hastings’.

 

Sub- meets super-

Because the Pier was listed some years ago, its Victorian substructure is somehow regarded as more important than the more recent additions. But all the Pier is listed, including the modern superstructure. Each complements the other. For HBC though, the architectural Oscar is a dirty little secret.

The committee report asserts unreliably:

It is considered that the structural changes would not have any detrimental impact on the special historic or architectural character of the pier as a listed building.

Clearly it would. Clearly also that architectural character includes its 21st century recognition and acclaim as well as the Victorian achievement.

As well as calm criticisms of the application, the report does not mention:

■  the modern-looking lampposts (one above, left) towards the sea end of the Pier

■  well-informed concerns about the proposed engineering repairs

■  the damage to the decking by these lampposts, or any assessment of that

■  how seaside tat is of benefit to Hastings.

As with the LBC application report (HS/LB/24/00047) , there is mention of an enforcement case regarding ‘unauthorised structures’. The case is strangely unfindable.

Recognised harms

The persistent line is that there are no recognised harms to the heritage value of the Grade 2 listed structure by virtue of the proposed changes. Few believe this. (To some it seems that HBC is busy vandalising the Pier and scandalising the town.) Council tools such as planning law, enforcement action, and Article 4 Direction, go furiously ignored.

Whether the planning committee will accept the officers’ recommendation on fake-Victorian lampposts is unknown. The meeting at Muriel Matters House will also be livestreamed, on Wednesday 14 August at 6pm.

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