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Boardwalk :: Forum List The Phoenix Quarter General Discussion

<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >> sabiomujer   New development in Lewes - 2005/12/09 22:26 This brown field site WILL be developed by someone. It is Government policy and substantial grants are available. Everyone has obviously forgotten the discussions/exhibitions regarding the Lewes House site over 5 years ago. A public exhibition showed four schemes of which by far the best scheme was that of Angel, designed by Piers Gough. The public voted overwhelmingly for this scheme. The Council chose the cheaper Ashmill scheme which has been much amended and is still not on site. Lewes will be poorer for having to accept a second rate scheme. Let's not do it again.... Angel have a proven track record, have an award winning architect whose family live in Lewes, and have the basis of what could be a terrific new development for Lewes. We should, and can, make sure that it is as good as possible and that all the various local interests are taken into account and satisfied - as far as possible. The Town has ample time to examine the plans, make representations to the District Council and bring considerable influence to bear on the outcome. Make no mistake that the Phoenix area will be developed by someone - it is up to the Town to make sure we get the right scheme/developer. We must be grown-up and accept that this is a Town Site - not a suberb and that cars will eventually be priced out of many town and city centres. We have a chance to get a better traffic flow for the Town, flood defences, access to the River and more housing. Let's go for it.   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum. anon   Re:New development in Lewes - 2005/12/10 18:05 I basically agree with you (and your comment under the Friends of Lewes newsletter item), but equally I think we owe it to ourselves to find out as much as possible about something which will have such an impact on our town, and to get involved. It's a bit worrying it needed a petition to call for a Town Meeting - why hadn't the Council already held one, for example? The Lewes House development, and even the Albion football stadium, are nothing compared to this - for better or for worse, this will change the nature of our town forever. Won't it?   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum. John Stockdale   Re:New development in Lewes - 2005/12/11 23:51 First of all, Marco, this is a wonderful website. Congratulations on getting it up and running so quickly. The visitor counter clearly indicates that Lewes Matters and the website are really needed to facilitate a debate on this important project. I am concerned for a number of reasons about this development and I am very worried that the local authorities will rubber stamp the overall concept and just tinker with the detail if the developer can show he has consulted widely and secured support from the main local bodies including Lewes Matters. In my view, LM should be asking lots of questions and not prefacing them with "we are broadly in favour of the concept..." until we are sure that we actually are. I suspect, the proposal as put is a massive overdevelopment. It MAY be OK. But it needs some careful study to make sure it isn't, like Brighton Marina, a massive £150m white elephant that will bankrupt successive owners or a 21st century slum that will compromise the town. I am not saying it is. But, if that's the case, and if the developer is saying 'take it or leave it', we'd be better off leaving it and waiting for a better proposition to come along another time. All I am asking is that we try to be a little more sceptical (not negative), that we ask for copies of plans, reports and documents, and that we withhold our endorsement until we are sure we want to give it.   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum. Gordon Bull   Re:New development in Lewes - 2006/01/03 19:39 After the Town meeting I sent an e-mail to Marco which might help the discussion so here is a copy I would like the following to be taken into account. To Angel Properties Having attended the meeting on 7 Dec, I am still left with questions, which although raised, were not answered to my satisfaction. There was a brief discussion at the meeting about sustainability but one was left with the view that the developer was not committed to such ideas and would only do as little as current government regulations call for. Will all the new buildings be constructed so as to be energy self-sufficient through the use of solar, wind or other kinds of clean energy or will they increase the CO2 emissions? We already have a water shortage, where will the extra water come from to serve the needs of these new developments and at what cost to the existing residents? Are the new houses and other building to collect rainwater and other grey water such as from washing machines and dishwashers and use it for non-drinking purposes?The developers must take climate change and its consequences seriously and act accordingly and this means at the very least providing clean energy for all buildings in the development and reducing pressure on water resources by recycling grey water. To Lewes Town and Urban District Councils My main concern is that there appears to be no body taking the overall view on developments in Lewes. In addition to the Pheonix development there is Baxters, Lewes House, the Pheonix site, Culverwell’s site, Clayhill nursery and in the longer term, perhaps the bus station and County Hall – they represent a fundamental change to the size and character of the town of Lewes. By considering each planning application on its own, the council can convince itself that each one adds little to the problems or to say that many of these issues are not its concerns so does not need to take them into account. The net effect could be a catastrophe for Lewes, both those who live here now and those who buy the new properties. Others have raised at various times in response to these proposed developments the issue of flood defences, road congestion, parking, affordable housing, park-and-ride requirements, the destruction of the twittens and inappropriate high-rise buildings so I will not touch on these, important though they are. One of my concerns is the combined impact of all these schemes on local education and health services. Who is planning for the new schools and nurseries and where will they go? How many new doctors will be required to meet the needs of the new citizens of Lewes and where will they come from and be located? It is already difficult enough to find a NHS dentist in Lewes, what will it be like with a large increase in population? How will the minor accident unit at Victoria hospital cope with an extra 10% or greater load? To hear that there is to be an environmental impact assessment which may include these issues does not fill me with confidence that they will be addressed either at the planning stage or by the developer (indeed it is hard to see how the developer can do much about some of these). As a result if the development goes ahead we will be left with poorer services when we should be striving for better services. Where is the overview, the long term plan, the impact analysis, the vision of the character of Lewes? I am not advocating no change, a town that does not change stagnates, but I am seeking reassurance that the Council, either on its own or in conjunction with East Sussex County Council is asking these difficult questions and resolving them before accepting these planning applications for massive change in our historic town. I believe it should commission a study to assess the collective impact of all these developments before agreeing to another   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum. Colin Mercer   Re:New development in Lewes - 2006/01/12 14:53 When Sir Patrick Geddes developed the principles and practice of British town and country planning in the early twentieth century he was insistent on two very important principles. The first of these was 'survey before plan'. By this he did not mean simply a site survey of the physical infrastructure, land use, environmental factors, etc - as important as these are - but also a full social and cultural survey: a process of social and cultural mapping of people's values, expectations, patterns of daily life, social trends and visions for their community. Geddes' second important principle was a very simple formula of the three fundamental co-ordinates to which planners had to be attentive in their designs: folk, work, place. Planners and designers, that is to say, had to be like anthropologists in understanding the history, rituals, patterns and values of people or 'folk' in their interactions with a place. They also had to be economists to understand the nature of 'work' and economic life and where it is leading. And they also had to be geographers - especially human, social and cultural geographers - to understand the special historic and cultural values attached by people to space and 'place'. Planning, that is to say, was never meant to be simply a product of the drawing board and the master plan: it was meant to be a social science involving communities and actively folding the community's values and assets into a more inclusive and open planning process which would give ownership and a stake in the process to the communities involved. We have lost much of this original orientation of planning but some of it is beginning to return, under pressure from local communities, in the form of the community planning movement in the UK, in the cultural planning movement in Canada, and in what came to be known as Integrated Local Area Planning in Australia. This model emphasises that planning is about infrastructure, land use and environment certainly, but also, and as importantly, about economic, social and cultural planning. This is what the present government would refer to as 'joined up thinking' and 'joined up government' and it is why we have Community Plans and Local Strategic Partnerships for example. Not much of this sort of thinking seems to be folding into the current plans for the Phoenix Quarter which is clearly going to have a significant impact on the economic, social and cultural life of Lewes, its texture and overall quality of life for both residents and visitors and new businesses. The proposal by the Lewes Matters pressure group for a series of workshops on these broader themes (Sussex Express, Jan 6, 2006) is therefore a very welcome one. Planning is much too important to be left to the planners: let's get the community involved in tangible and more than gestural ways in a wider process of survey and mapping - in community planning. Having worked in this field in Australia and the UK for 17 years now, I can tell you that it will pay off - for folk, work, and place.   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum. ..   Re:New development in Lewes - 2006/03/14 06:07 This town needs development as it looks run down in places.   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum.

Boardwalk :: Forum List The Phoenix Quarter General Discussion

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