The Archery Ground in Burtons’ St Leonards was for 130 years a public open space, nationally famous and visited by royalty in Victorian times. It formed an integral part of the Burtons’ St Leonards new town development of the early 19th century, an exemplary plan which balanced architectural excellence with beautifully managed open spaces.

In the 1960s the Archery Ground was commandeered for Hastings College, which built a hideous tower block but left much of the wild tree-lined ground behind it unspoiled.

Now the huge but financially ailing developers Gladedale Homes want to build 7 blocks of flats on it. Most of the trees will go. If they get their way, a total of 163 dwellings and car parking will be shoehorned into this beauty spot which forms an integral part of the ambience of historic St Leonards.

A conservation area of both local and national significance will have been wiped out, for no better purpose than to maximise the profits of a company that has indirectly been bailed out to the tune of £500 million by HBOS, which in turn has, it’s just been revealed, secretly been shored up by the Treasury to the tune of £65 billion.

These may not strictly be planning issues, but it’s worth noting that the money Gladedale paid for the College site has been re-directed into the Station Plaza and Ore Valley development.

The very cheap price they paid for the site was a reflection of the many constraints outlined by Council officers which would have kept the density at about half the present application. (It has also been suggested that the purchase is not yet complete, and that as the density rises, so will the price — and with it, more money for Station Plaza.)

What are planning issues (apart from over-density, inappropriate materials and layout that negate the landscape’s contours, loss of open space, impact of traffic, noise and collateral damage to the surrounding area) are the application’s many inaccuracies, including a whole missing building!

Council officers are now rumoured to be set to support the application on Dec.9. Are they backtracking on the standards they set out at the start, and if so, just what grubby deals have been done?

The STAG campaign point out that this is a historic opportunity to undo the damage to the site done in the 1960s and return to the standards of excellence that marked the original Burton development. It’s been suggested that a national architectural competition, based on a widely agreed planning brief, could come up with a scheme worthy of the site.

Along with the Jerwood Gallery, this could also do wonders for Hastings’ reputation, and there would surely be no shortage of people wanting to move in.

Do look up STAG’s excellent and thoroughly researched site at http://www.savethearcheryground.org, and use this link to support the petition http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stag/

Also in: Home Ground