Latest Members' Meeting
Some 40 members came to the meeting on 11 January to debate Phoenix Action's submission on the 'Vision Statement for the North Street Area'.Andrew Simpson has revised the draft taking into account the amendments and clarifications agreed unanimously by the meeting.
I plan to send the following to the Council as our agreed position tomorrow.
You can see the final version, along with a very instructive 'vision' from local flood expert Tom Crossett on our vision page.
John Stockdale
Chairman
Development Brief
Lewes District Council has announced (dated 28.11.2006) that it is proposing to prepare a 'Planning Vision' for the North Street area in the context of the Local Development Framework - the LDF will guide future developments in the District.
The Council are taking back control of the town planning process and now propose to develop new
planning policy for the Phoenix Industrial Estate. Angel Property's plans in their present form
are clearly dead in the water.
It is also apparent that if the Council had not stepped in Angel would have been unable to
make a successful application anyway.
However, Angel are still the principal landowners on the site and parts of any subsequent proposal may well include elements of the plans we have already seen if they are an appropriate responses to the development brief.
It is vital that as many people as possible are involved in the planning of this development brief,
not just council recognised "stakeholders".
The Council are to arrange sessions at which various interested parties may put forward their
own 'visions' for the site to be considered, with the aim of setting development objectives.
It is important to note, however, that the council seem prepared to consider Angel's own
recent 'consultation' as sufficient at present, stating they will not go out to seek individual
views as part of the Vision exercise.
In apparent contradiction to this they do state, however, that subsequent actions will involve
very extensive public consultation with the need to consider all views received, whether from an
organisation or from individual persons.
We need to make the most of both the semi-formal Vision exercise and the later consulations to express our views.
However, although this amounts to a development brief, what we are getting is not the development
brief we asked for as it does not include the other two sites in the centre of the town that are
in play.
It is definitely a most encouraging start towards joined up planning but as ever, the devil is in
the detail and we need to keep a very close watch on proceedings.
Timing too is critical as initial reports are requested for 17th January.
Consultation Results
On 24th June 2006 our day of action attracted a great crowd to the Pells area to consider some aspects of the proposals for flood protection.We had a number of questions on sheets giving people the chance to respond and add comments. Click here to go to the results, below.
The Application
The developer has let it be known that he intends to submit his application by the beginning of August - just in time for the holiday season.While he may hope that this will minimise the response from us (and others like-minded), we must work to make sure we can still produce a significant objection at the time.
We must also lobby the District Council to extend the time available for objections to be considered from the minimal 21 days.
They have some flexibility in this so we must emphasise the need for a reasonable time for the population of Lewes to consider the actual application being made, and also for us to work on the technical objections that will be necessary to offer objections which will count in planning terms.
Exhibition - Back to the Wall
For anyone who has missed the devloper's exhibition in the ex Market Lane Garage, it lately appears to be open around lunch times.
Many of us are aware of the developer's 'Consultation' technique: countering any challenge with
a vague claim of "it won't be like that" or even specific promises of changes.
It's clearly a consistent ploy to wrong-foot any objector at this early stage, but we won't be taken in.
He tried this method quite a lot with the Flood Protection scheme. We now note that despite the extravagant changes in plan offered, the exhibition shows the Pelham Terrace section to be a WALL once more - what is going on?
Barratts and Wenban-Smith
We have had confirmation that the site of Wenban-Smith is to be developed by Barratt HomesThis would greatly increase the strain on our town and so should be a good argument against the major over-development proposed for the Phoenix site.