Marline Wood.

Protest rally against North Queensway plans

Seachangewatch plans to hold an in-situ rally to protest against the development plans for Sea Change Sussex’s North Queensway Innovation Park next Sunday. Meanwhile the sustainability statement in support of the application has come in for heavy criticism from community energy consultant Energise Sussex Coast. Nick Terdre reports.

A rally has been called on the site of the North Queensway Innovation Park by Seachangewatch to protest against Sea Change Sussex’s plans to develop the site which, it argues, threaten the adjacent Marline Valley nature reserve.

The rally, at 2pm on Sunday 8 August, will feature speakers and a chance to take a guided tour of the nature reserve, said Seachangewatch, which monitors Sea Change’s activities.

The planning application (HS/FA/21/00327) calls for a number of speculative industrial units to be built over some 4,000 sq metres of the proposed business park, where the original offer for tenants to build their own premises brought no takers.

The proposal, for which Sea Change Sussex has been awarded a £3.5m grant from the government’s Getting Building Fund by the South East Local Enterprise Partnership, has attracted nearly 190 objections as well as a petition.

Sussex Wildlife Trust leases the Marline Valley nature reserve from HBC.

Several consultees have also opposed the plans, including Sussex Wildlife Trust, which leases the nature reserve from Hastings Borough Council. “We do not believe the proposal complies with national or local biodiversity policy and are concerned about the risk to the SSSI [site of special scientific interest],” it cites as grounds for its objection.

Natural England, which has previously detailed “considerable concerns” about the potential impact of the development on Marline Valley, says in its response that further information is required on seven specific points to assess whether its concerns have been met.

“Misleading and inaccurate claims”

Meanwhile Energise Sussex Coast, a community energy advisory group though not a statutory consultee, takes issue with the sustainability statement filed as part of the application, which it says “makes a number of misleading and inaccurate claims.” One of these is that the gas combi-boiler heating system selected as the best energy option for the development “ensures that the scheme delivers optimum efficiency whilst minimising the emissions of pollutants” – if made at COP26, this “would make Hastings Council (and the UK’s zero carbon commitment) a global laughing stock,” comments ESC.

It also criticises claims in the statement relating to biomass boilers, the cost of solar PV and the performance of heat pumps.

“Energise Sussex Coast’s objections to the Sustainability Statement that accompanies our planning application are woefully misconceived, quoting selective parts of our Statement incompletely and taking them out of context,” Sea Change told HOT.

“We take sustainability seriously in the design of our buildings and employ specialist sustainability advisors on all our development projects.  In drawing up the North Queensway industrial scheme, we’ve taken concerns about the neighbouring environment carefully into account and conducted detailed site surveys to ensure we developed a design that would have a negligible impact on the Marline Valley.”

Much-needed premises

“We know our industrial scheme is opposed by a few local anti-development protestors, but we’re looking at the community as a whole and confident our scheme would provide much-needed premises to help local companies to expand, to support jobs for local people and to give the area’s economy a post-COVID boost.

“We’ve brought the scheme forward, on a site which Hastings’ Local Plan already earmarks for business use, to address the acute lack of suitable local industrial properties. A recent independent report found existing industrial properties in the area are at near-100% occupancy and there’s a severe lack of sites available for development, which is holding back business growth.

“We also always consider a wide array of technologies and methods to deliver commercial properties that balance sustainability with high quality and affordability for local businesses. And we’ve had considerable success in applying this approach – enabling businesses to invest, grow and create jobs in the Hastings and Bexhill area, which remains our highest priority.”

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