Looking across the recreation ground off Harrow Lane towards the sea.
Forum arranged for Harrow Lane development
The council has arranged a public meeting for a proposed housing development on the recreation ground at the top of Harrow Lane this Wednesday, 5 October. Nick Terdre reports.
The meeting takes the form of a pre-application forum, the council press release explains, “essentially an opportunity for a developer of a significant development to present the proposals to a wider audience prior to submitting a planning application and for the Council to hold a structured discussion about it.”
The proposal is for a residential development with associated access, parking and green space, though the identity of the developer has not been revealed. The 4.75-hectare site has been earmarked for residential use in the borough’s development plan.
The notice advises that only invited stakeholders, including community representatives, councillors and officers will be allowed to speak. Residents may make representations and have questions answered through local representatives and councillors. It is understood that the two councillors for Ashdown ward, in which the development lies, Cllrs Rob Cooke and Mike Edwards, plan to attend. So will Cllrs John Rankin and Liam Atkins of Conquest ward, the boundary of which lies close to the site, Cllr Rankin confirmed to HOT.
The recreation ground is situated opposite the government offices at Ashdown House.
The council hopes that by holding the forum the developer will also be better informed as to the community expectations prior to submitting a planning application.
Holding pre-application meetings is part of the council’s commitment to improving community awareness of the planning process, it says. Community awareness would no doubt also be improved if it gave more than two days’ notice – the press release was only issued on the morning of Monday 3 October.
Pre-application forum on proposed Harrow Lane development Wednesday 5 October, 6pm, Council Chamber, Aquila House, 2 Breeds Place, Hastings TN34 3AA.
If you’re enjoying HOT and would like us to continue providing fair and balanced reporting on local matters please consider making a donation. Click here to open our PayPal donation link. Thank you for your continued support!
9 Comments
Also in: Home Ground
« Hastings coastal protection worksCommunity Garden celebration »
If commentator ‘DAR’expected to get any information from any councillor in this town he will be sadly disappointed: left or right of the field they all seem to be on the side of the council and the planning department.
The Harrow Lane proposals aroused much angst when the Inspector agreed to relent on his decision to withdraw the site from the development management plan and to keep this meeting under wraps until the eleventh hour is nothing short of shameful. These developers and everyone else involved in this farcial pre-application meeting should be named and shamed. And that include councillors who seemingly made not a whimper about the short and inadequate notice given for this meeting.
The fiasco up at the West Hill Road site and the disgraceful situation at the Rocklands caravan park/collapsed Eccelsbourne Glen should be a timely reminder that our elected councillors are totally without back bone – there have been enough bad things going on here aka planning decisions for at least some of these elected dummies to have the courage to stand up and be counted. But nope – despite front page coverage of the West Hill Road travesty with two councillors expressing their concern – that appears to be as far as it has gone….not good enough. Who voted for these people?
Comment by ms. doubtfire — Saturday, Oct 8, 2016 @ 11:54
PS “ms doubtfire” is absolutely right about this proposed development (of some 140 homes) being originally recommended for deletion from the Local Plan on the grounds that the playing fields might be required for future recreational use – which is what has happened re: the football practice that I mentioned previously.
Comment by DAR — Thursday, Oct 6, 2016 @ 15:21
I’m furious! This is the first I’ve heard of this meeting, and I certainly would have attended if I’d known about it sooner. I’ve been lobbying Cllr. Robert Cooke about this issue for some time now and thought I might have been informed by said councillor, at least. This length of notice is anti-democratic and typical of the chicanery re: planning and developments in Hastings.This is a publicly-owned amenity which, at present, is being used informally, by local parents and children on Saturday mornings as a football skills/practice endeavour. It is also the last such green space leisure amenity in the vicinity. And what such a large development will do to an already-choc-a-bloc road system in the area is an horrendous thing to contemplate.
Comment by DAR — Thursday, Oct 6, 2016 @ 14:43
What needs to be remembered is this:
When the Inspector first drew up his preliminary recommendations for the Local Plan in 2015 he recommended that the Harrow Lane site should be withdrawn from the Development Plan: He wrote to the council stating that he recommended ‘deletion of the proposed allocation at Harrow Lane, essentially on the grounds that future residential schemes in the neighbourhood and elsewhere could result in a need for recreational facilities on this land, it would be prudent to retain this land in its open state at least until the review of the Plan…’ and at this stage everyone was able to make comment on all his recommendations – some were pleased with his report some were not.
The council were not at all happy with the suggestion the Harrow Lane site should be withdrawn and they ‘appealed’ to the Inspector with lengthy explanations why this site should remain in the local plan. They said it would remove far too many potential housing opportunities if it were to be withdrawn and the Inspector agreed that it should remain within the Local Dev. Plan but with some caveats. All this is written up in far more detail somewhere on the council’s website…and I say ‘somewhere’ becaue the Local Plan documents are fragemented and many do not appear on HBC’s websites anyway. Something to do with ‘Server Not Found’.
Yesterday’s meeting was an attempt (ha! some attempt eh?) to engage with residents and outline the new plans for this site…which will of course now be developed – and whatever was put forward last night will of course be of little interest to the developer. A similar process was operated for the old college Archery Road plans – what happened? A more inappropriate development than first proposed. A most unsatisfactory outcome.
Pre application meetings are just window dressing – they make not one iota of difference to what the developer plans to do. And that is democracy and transparency at work in this town. And it is worth remembering that the independently appointment government Inspector who conducted these Local Plan Hearings over a very lenghty period actually concluded that whilst he appreciated the difficulties the council had in reconciling the need and requirement for new housing in the borough, he was of the view that with some aspects of the Plan there was not enough emphasis on the environmental, community and design considerations. He also made a specific recommendation regarding the design of developments. He said – of principal and greater consequence for every scheme will be matters which include the design, height, mass and appearance of the proposed building(s) layout, tree and relationship with the surroundings including nearby buildings and views of the Borough’s natural and historic assets including of Hastings Castle).
Has this council merely put the Inspector’s statements in a drawer somewhere and forgotten about it? Judging by the recent applications coming up and the total devastation of the West Hill Road site plus the fiasco up at Eccelsbourne Glen, one has to ask whether this new Local Plan is worth the paper it is printed on.
Comment by ms. doubtfire — Thursday, Oct 6, 2016 @ 09:01
Blimey, here we go again,…?
Comment by JJ Waller — Wednesday, Oct 5, 2016 @ 22:59
Two days!HBC planning strikes again. Makes a farce of the whole consultation process but then there is no way development will be stopped because the site is already in the Local Plan. A pre-app at this stage will only ever tinker around the edges.
Comment by ken davis — Wednesday, Oct 5, 2016 @ 20:24
Well said Andy Ammo – one has to wonder for how much longer this council’s planning department will get away with their dictatorship governance.
There surely will come the day when they are slammed into special measures and their hands removed from the steering wheel.Hopefully before all our green spaces and historic buildings have been turned to concrete.
Time to stand up to these bullies and their love affair with the developer.
Comment by ms. doubtfire — Wednesday, Oct 5, 2016 @ 11:12
‘Structured discussion’? More like controlled discussion. The notice given is insulting. Straight answers to straight questions are unlikely.
Who are these developers who want to destroy more precious green space of the Borough? And why does the Council repeatedly fall over itself to let them? So very obliging of HBC, who are elected to represent US and not developers.
Has the redevelopment of Ashdown House (across the road) been considered first?
Comment by Andy Ammo — Wednesday, Oct 5, 2016 @ 10:08
I doubt if 2 days notice is acceptable – these pre application meetings were supposed to be an acknowledgement of residents rights to be able to discuss and hear the proposals in more depth – not only do we discover that only a couple of days notice is given, those who really need to talk about this application are denied the opportunity without prior submission to their elected councilor/s or elected representatives….two days notice and all that palaver has to be sorted and ready for tomorrow… Typical isn’t it? Transparency and Democracy? Really? This council really does take us all for idiots.
Comment by ms. doubtfire — Tuesday, Oct 4, 2016 @ 15:53