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Angel on the move
Angel Property’s eagerly-awaited (with trepidation by many) revised masterplan was given a sneak preview to Lewes Town Council Planning Committee Members – and a couple of LM die-hards in the public gallery - on Tuesday evening. One might have assumed that the combination of credit crunch, stagnant property prices and the plummeting confidence of investment firms in commercial real estate, would have seriously dampened the aspirations of any prudent developer for this controversial site. It seems though that the ball is still rolling... And curiously the presentation made no mention of the Environment Agency’s all-important Strategic Flood Risk Assessment for the town, which was supposed to inform any developer of the quantifiable risk of building on the North Street flood plain. And upon which any planning proposals would be judged. Malling Brooks application submitted (LW/071608)
Written comments on this application must submitted to LDC by the 22nd February. With this in mind, Malling residents have called an Open Meeting for people interested in finding out more. It is likely that members of Lewes Flood Action will be present to answer questions. All are welcome to attend at Malling Community Centre (Bridge View Bar) on Monday 4 February at 7.00pm. Readers familiar with Angel Property's plans for the "Phoenix Quarter" will remember that an integral part of the package was a parallel planning application for land acquired at Malling Brooks. It is here that some, though not all businesses currently operating from North St., would be offered relocation, in a bid to remove a major planning stumbling block: the loss of “valuable designated light industrial land”.  The Malling Brooks application is featured in the revised masterplan.
We wrote to ask Angel whether they will be mounting a public exhibition of the new plan, to which they replied; "we anticipate having an exhibition to present the masterplan prior to submission of the planning application this spring, we will publicise the date as soon as we are ready, most likely to be in March" In the meantime, Angel have supplied Lewes Matters with the revised masterplan for publication here - click here for  PH.pres8.2.pdf. Interestingly, especially for all North St tenants whose properties are owned by the Councils, the page in the document as presented to the Council that referred to the Malling Brooks site, evolved significantly in the subsequent 48 hours. All mention of relocating the Recycling Centre, North St. Garage and ATS Tyres to Malling Brooks was dropped and four of the units are now described as ‘unallocated’. | Revised... | Original... | Malling Brooks will provide new buildings to accomodate Furniture Now, Lewes Carbody, Lewes Car Valeting, John Gosnell & Co (one of oldest established companies in Lewes) as well as 4 unallocated industrial buildings and 4 freehold office buildings. There will also be 70 long stay public car parking spaces. The Malling Brooks scheme features careful attention to its ecological and environmental footprint with a 20 metre wide ecological habitat and buffer zone. A detailed planning application was registered in January 2008. Malling Brooks will provide Lewes with modern, high quality facilities to replace ageing units on the Phoenix Estate. | The latest Malling Brooks scheme includes future relocation of the Council’s uses and tenants to enable completion of Phoenix Quarter. Relocation of the Recycling Centre, Furniture Now, North Street Garage and ATS Tyres as well as Lewes Carbody, Lewes Car Valeting, John Gosnell & Co (one of oldest established companies in Lewes) and an additional new office building. There will also be 70 long stay public car parking spaces. The Malling Brooks scheme features careful attention to its ecological and environmental footprint with a 20 metre wide ecological habitat and buffer zone. A detailed planning application was registered in January 2008. |
Remember that our District Council are on record as saying they will not sell any of the land they own on this site. For more background information on this part of the application, readers can find relevant threads in our Discussion Forum, while the site is discussed in The Phoenix Quarter Checklist. Charles Style has responded to the above with the following request... "Thank you for your in-depth coverage. You are of course right in detailing the revision to our recent Phoenix slide show and the copy changes to the page dealing with Malling Brooks. The idea that the recycling centre and council tenants from the Phoenix might move to Malling Brooks is just that, an idea. It is not part of the planning application for Malling Brooks, and these uses have not been allocated. There has not been any agreement with the Council regarding possible future relocation of the recycling or Council tenants and we changed the copy because it was realized that this idea might be misinterpreted. I would be grateful if you would make these points clear. Namely that these uses are not part of the planning application and no agreement has been entered into with the Council for such uses." The second part of Angel’s presentation to LTC featured a tree-by-tree description of various proposed floodwall routes across the Pells. This appeared to upset many Councillors who reminded Mr Style that this land is Council-owned – held in trust for the townspeople since the 17th Century – and that any discussion of such detailed nature is highly premature. Absolutely! Lewes District Council's Technical Group met with Angel Property on Thursday 31st January. They were, presumably, able to review the long awaited Strategic Flood Risk Assessment – scheduled for presentation before Christmas - and its impact on any proposed development. Watch this space! We will post the minutes when they become available, in the meantime here are the minutes from meeting number 11 of the Technical Group. Click here for  FILe__NOTE__North__Street__6__December.doc |
Flood Issues
Lewes House Development
No, the river never actually burst out of its banks and no homes were flooded during this miserable summer.