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St Anne’s to be demolished despite committee’s decision

No sooner had proposals to redevelop St Anne’s church in Hollington been refused than there was an application to demolish it anyway. Hastings Borough Council (HBC) approved it in a delegated decision by planning officers. Bernard McGinley reports.

The proposal to replace St Anne’s church with five pinched houses was refused by the Planning Committee on 28 September (case HS/FA/22/00028). The grounds were:

1. harm to the character and appearance of the area
2. effect on access to the public pavement
3. loss of the community facility, and
4. loss of a building of local architectural and communal significance.

There was no appeal. Just over two weeks later, the application form for the new proposal (HS/DM/22/00835) stated on p4 ‘the reasons why demolition needs to take place’ as:

To facilitate redevelopment of the site for housing. 

and goes on to state that redevelopment or rebuilding is proposed afterwards. 

This is unsatisfactory and brings ‘Permitted Development Rights’ (‘PDR’) into disrepute, and planning procedure in general. The application form stated that the demolition would be over before it had begun. Separately the case was said to be under different parts of different General Permitted Development Orders (GPDOs).

The confusion was marked, and the appearance of an invalid application strong. Did HBC planning department pause the application to sort all this out? Of course not.

Heritage asset

In the September case, the Council’s Conservation Officer was clear about the building’s non-designated heritage asset (NDHA) status:

The church should therefore be regarded as a non-designated heritage asset and a material consideration in any planning decision. We should also ascribe value to it as a potential listed building for the future.

The Decision letter of 15 November on the subsequent case does not mention this.

Pevsner

St Anne’s is impressive enough to be mentioned in the authoritative architectural guide, Pevsner (The Buildings of England: Sussex East). The entry says:

ST ANNE. Chambers Road, Hollington.  1956 by J L Denman & Son. Brick and flint and still in the Arts and Crafts tradition. The tower, with pyramid roof, is curved to W and E. The nave has projecting window bays which break through the eaves to gabled and hipped dormers, Interior with pointed tunnel-vault.

The Denman family, Brighton-based, is the subject of increasing interest. The entry misses that the windows of St Anne’s are also of interest. The glasswork is attributed to Marjorie May Incledon (1891-1973), also a painter, who worked in Sussex (and was a cousin of JRR Tolkien).

Article 4

The 20th Century Society objected. So too did Historic Buildings & Places (HB&P), formerly the Ancient Monuments Society. Both advocated Article 4 Direction: if adopted that would have refused the demolition rights here unreasonably asserted. It would have reinstated the requirement for planning permission for demolition.

Additionally a Building Protection Notice could have been imposed by the Council to give it more time to seek listing and therefore consider Listed Building Consent. 

Under a reform that came in in August 2020, ‘Permitted Development Rights’ are deemed to exist in certain circumstances. Procedural so-called thoroughness requires that 

Site notices, neighbour notifications and consultation of certain third parties are required, giving the opportunity for representations to be made which must be taken into account.

How are they therefore taken into account?  Despite the public notice, there is no public consultation. The Decision letter does not mention St Anne’s as a heritage asset. Nor does it mention any ‘proposed restoration’ of the site — the only other matter in the case to consider apart from the method of demolition, according to the Council.

The case cannot go to Planning Committee (again according to the Council), whose previous decision counts for nothing. This is smelly, and disregards the HBC Constitution.

The ‘delegated authority report’ (as there’s no committee report) admits that the site notice cited the wrong GPDO and the wrong part of the GPDO (Part 11 from 2015, not Part 31 from 1995), then airily indicates that it doesn’t matter. But if it doesn’t matter, what is the point of these regs? Or if they can be disregarded, let them be temporarily disregarded. The Council has the authority to make an Article 4 direction. That would restrict the scope of ‘Permitted Development Rights’, or otherwise limit the range of such rights. The delegated report does not comment on Article 4, nor of course does the Decision letter. Similarly the delegated report does not mention the building’s heritage asset status.  

The planners allege that 

comments were fully considered and after closely examining all aspects of this application it has been decided that prior approval of the development is required and is given

but internal evidence suggests otherwise: that it was the old Alice in Wonderland decision-making style of ‘Sentence first and verdict afterwards’.  

One objection was subjected to censorship by the Council. The published version read:

Allegations that the Constitution prevents the case from being considered by the Planning Committee are false. Proceeding on a delegated basis would be a shabby and ■■■■■■■■■■ [proposed] use of delegated powers.

The suppressed word was scandalous.  

 

Inconsistency and arbitrariness

Councillors of all parties were understood to be seeking ways of saving the church (which had become a gym in recent years).  The officers’ line on ‘PDR’ seems to have prevailed, but without explanation.

There is a public notice in Chambers Road but public comment/consultation was not allowed or therefore considered.

Although planning permission for the site was refused, the owner can promptly and successfully submit a demolition notice that says ‘demolition needs [sic] to take place’ ‘to facilitate redevelopment of the site for housing’. There is no related proposal however. (Apparently the new development cannot exceed the footprint of the old building, but that might change.)

In its first Decision letter, refusing the application, HBC wrote:

loss of the heritage asset has not been clearly or convincingly justified. 

It still hasn’t, and the subsequent process disrespects a community and a community asset.

The demolition is scheduled for February 2023. The much admired Incledon window is going to the Church-in-the-Wood, which founded St Anne’s. That is little consolation to Chambers Road.

The lack of accountability has been scandalous.  The planning system is ■■■■■■■■■■, and in a bad way.   

 

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Posted 21:07 Wednesday, Nov 16, 2022 In: Home Ground

6 Comments

Please read our comment guidelines before posting on HOT

  1. Heather Grief

    Very good article, Bernard; if you hadn’t written it, I would have been unaware of this appalling decision.
    How can the town’s councillors allow this to happen?
    What is the point of having a planning system which has such a huge loophole that it allows the demolition of this unique building by a renowned architect and in the face of objections from heritage groups such as the 20th Century Society? And before HBC’s conservation officer had had the chance to comment.
    I’d like to know the names of every person who was involved in making this decision, and whether each of them knows the developer or owner.

    Comment by Heather Grief — Monday, Nov 21, 2022 @ 16:30

  2. h grigg

    I would ask that those with the power to do so examine the possible back-handers on this. I’m not saying that there are but it should be checked.
    Thanks.
    H Grigg

    Comment by h grigg — Monday, Nov 21, 2022 @ 09:09

  3. Russell Hall

    The Hastings Borough Council planning department must be wetting themselves in celebration that there is no effective opposition to this application. How difficult is it to get the 10 signatures needed to force this application to be considered by the Planning Committee or what effort does it take to get one councillor to call this application in?

    Comment by Russell Hall — Friday, Nov 18, 2022 @ 18:16

  4. Christopher Hurrell

    An application that has all the characteristics of being railroaded through by the Planning Department overriding the previous refusal by the Planning Committee.

    The application form had invalid dates and the site notice cited the wrong section of the act. Both passed validation by HBC. HBC failed to consult properly and did not give sufficient time for consultees to respond.

    The HBC conservation officer was belatedly consulted after objectors pointed out the failure to consult. The application was rubber stamped before the Conservation officer had responded.

    The original application to demolish and build was refused at Planning Committee. The new application used procedural manoeuvring to override the decision of the Planning Committee.

    What was the response of the Planning Committee members to this undermining of their authority? Silence. Not a single member who refused the previous application raised their voice to question the demolition of the building by Permitted Development Rights.

    Committee members and ward councillors apparently acquiesced in the decision of the planners to not allow this application to be decided by the planning committee and to not be open to consultation and comment.

    No councillors were prepared to call the application in for decision by the Planning Committee. Not a single elected councillor spoke up to support the use of an Article 4 directive or a Building Protection Notice.

    Nothing will change in Mugsborough until we have councillors who are prepared to question and hold the planners to account. This episode shows they would rather acquiesce to the planners and developers interests than stand up for the interests of their constituents and have some pride in the built environment.

    Comment by Christopher Hurrell — Friday, Nov 18, 2022 @ 13:00

  5. Richard Price

    Excellent article Bernard, well done!

    In my opinion what happened is that the council had already helped the developer to obtain finance to demolish and build the new housing. They had accessed funding for housing and regeneration prior to the planning committee meeting.

    In the first case (00028) they may have been expecting the planning committee to approve the application despite the fact that it had been recommended for refusal by the planning department. When it didn’t approve it the planning department had to react quickly. They advised the applicant to submit a proposal for demolition (00835) and then approved it. This had to happen quickly because a debate to protect the building due to it’s heritage asset status was probable. It’s why in the delegated decision notice there is no mention of the buildings non-designated heritage asset (NDHA) status. It’s also why there is no mention of the potential to save it using an Article 4 Direction.

    This had already been decided before it even went to the planning committee. None of this reflects well on the planning department or on the democratic process. It smacks of collusion.

    These are my opinions. Getting proof would require FOI requests that would be refused and a long trek down the road towards transparency would then occur. What’s really needed is someone with enough finance to take the council to court over this decision.

    Comment by Richard Price — Thursday, Nov 17, 2022 @ 10:14

  6. kenneth davis

    Whilst, as a former conservation and design officer, I am not one for retaining all old buildings because they are old, the really sad thing here is that sustainability has not even entered the debate.
    Good design and sustainability are now supposed to be the prime aims of the planning system and yet neither have been considered here. Retaining existing building fabric, if practical, is the first aim for new development. It is probable here, as someone who has designed dozens of buildings, that conversion and extension of the existing would actually result in more residential accommodation than a group of developer standard houses. It would also be a more distinctive local and historic solution. The planning system fails us again.

    Comment by kenneth davis — Thursday, Nov 17, 2022 @ 08:52

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