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South Downs Road development - 2007/07/06 10:13LDC Planning Committee decide the detailed planning application for this site on Wedneday 11 July at 5pm in the Corn Exchange.
Outline planning was agreed in 2005 for 125 dwellings and 30,000 sq ft offices on the old town dump. Patcham Developments then sold on with the main benefit stated in their advert as 'No requirement to include affordable housing'. Patcham, of course, sold the Phoenix site to Angel Property when their application was turned down. The new developer added one or more floors to most of the buildings (beginning to ring a few bells?), crept them nearer the boundary and eliminated the screen of trees between the development and existing houses. But the officers have nevertheless decided to recommend approval.
This is a very major development to add to the 2 million houses on the floodplain across the country. The 27,000 plus houses that have been flooded in the midlands and Yorkshire are beyond the ability of the local building industry to fix in a reasonable timescale and the displaced families are beyond the ability of the authorities to rehouse. The flood wall that protects Malling Brooks will be overtaken by sea level rise within the lifetime of these properties.
Major developments on the floodplain in Lewes are all interconnected. Permission for one serves as a precedent for the next - and the Planning Authority get inured to doing things that don't make any commonsense every time they do so. If you can, turn up and support local residents and Lewes Flood Action who are objecting. If nothing else a big turnout will warn the Council that there may be trouble ahead.
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jstockdale
Re:South Downs Road development - 2007/07/10 10:29LDC have deferred consideration of the Planning Application for the South Downs Road development so that the Environment Agency can make their views known. So, there's now no need to turn out on Wednesday - unless you are also interested in the application for the Glyndebourne windmill.
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jstockdale
Re:South Downs Road development - 2007/07/15 11:14I understand that the Application has in fact been withdrawn and not just been deferred because the Environment Agency pointed out that there were kitchens on the ground floor on part of the site and outline permission was given on condition that all residential accommodation would be first floor and above. There are also questions about whether additional floors in most of the buildings have been achieved by excavating 2.8m into the waterlogged soil. The plans are not easy to follow.
The EA were only involved because of the vigilance of a local resident. She phoned the EA planning officer to ask why the LDC officers' report recorded that there was no objection to the scheme from the EA. The EA planning officer said he was unaware of the application. The LDC Chief Executive was then contacted and the Council agreed to defer.
My information has come from a reliable and authoritative source so I am reasonably sure of my facts. There are some really worrying indications about the rickety way the planning system is being operated.
Why did the applicant submit plans that did not conform to the conditions of the outline planning permission? Was it just a try on that nearly succeeded? Do theythink we can't read and have straw in our hair? The fee for the application was £30,000 so presumably they're going to have to pay that again when they resubmit.
Why was the EA planning officer not made aware of a major housing application on a really dodgy site that flooded to 16ft in 2000 on which the EA had made detailed comments at the previous stage?
Did LDC inform the EA? Did the EA fail to pass the letter on the correct person? Did the letter just fall down the back of a filing cabinet?
Why did LDC not chase up an answer from EA? The officers' report stating: "no objection to the scheme from the EA" is correct but ambiguous. There is a big difference between not having a letter from EA and having a letter from them saying: "We have no objection".
I feel sorry for the Planning Department. They are seriously understaffed and must be sinking under the huge volume of paper they have to shift. The EA too have had plenty on their plates with the recent floods.
But once again it's been left to individuals to make sure a serious error isn't made and the rules observed on a really major project.
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sashka
Re:South Downs Road development - 2007/07/16 23:37I am afraid I do not have any sympathy for the planning department at all. As I understand it , this is not the first time that the negative views of a statutory consultee have failed to make it into a Planning report, but inaccurate information is used instead. In 2004, when 3 Albion St houses were being considered, the recommendation for refusal by the Highway Athority was omitted from a report, and another document that made no view was used instead. Sound familiar? The correct view was only supplied when a local resident (familiar again?) found the real comments recommending refusal in a file sleeve that said 'confidential not for public view'. Officers denied they were wrong, and residents eventually had to make a complaint to the Ombudsman, who agreed that the Council had been guilty of Administrative Fault. The Council however did not investigate how it happened, and it seems have done nothing to correct their failure to get consultations done properly . The Planning Department made a very large profit in extra payments by getting applications processed within fixed time frames (but to what standard?), so it is about time they started explaining why they find it so difficult to process big applications and pay for additional help, but will harass individuals in Lewes over pieces of trellis, and some plastic window frames.(actual examples of the Council pursuing specific planning 'breaches') Why aren't the 'Friends of Lewes' spotting the kind of gross errors that individual Lewes residents are finding so easily?
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jstockdale
Re:South Downs Road development - 2007/08/06 09:36Well! Surprise, surprise, the planning application for South Downs Road went through the LDC Planning Committee on 1 August. The Environment Agency raised no objection and the officers enthusiastically endorsed the plans.
Tom Crossett of Lewes Flood Action had written to Yvette Cooper, the Housing Minister asking her to give councils the power to delay approving applications to build on the flood plain pending the completion of a strategic flood risk assessment, and representations were made by local residents and ward councillor James MacCleary asking for at least a delay so the minister could reply.
Everything was done correctly and in accordance with policy. Outline permission was given on the basis of the old guidance on building on flood plains - and once given, permission for a development that is consistent with outline has to follow as night follows day. Stricter new government guidance that would have ruled this development out and the events of the last two months couldn't be taken into account. In turning their backs on commonsense and the precautionary principle, some councillors clearly felt uneasy. Two voted against. Two others and the chair, Lewes' Jim Daly didn't vote. The six who voted for it included Lewes' other representative on the Committee, Ian Eiloart - and that won't be easily forgotten.
Whilst you get the feeling that our planners are direct descendants of the builders of Atlantis, there was also an impression that the Committee won't easily be bullied into approving any significant development on the flood plain in future.
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Harry
Re:South Downs Road development - 2007/08/06 17:11The following is interesting in connection with John's reference to Tom's letter to the Minister about giving planning permission before a strategic flood risk assessment has been completed.
At the 19 July meeting of the North Street technical group, according to the minutes (on Lewes Matters home page):
'CS (Charles Style) expressed concern at the effect of this flood risk work on preparation of the Planning Vision, and on preparation of the planning application by Angel Property. LF (Lindsay Frost) and GM said that PPS25 requirements, and the recent serious flooding elsewhere in England, meant that the flood risk issues had to be fully assessed.
'However, LF and GM will contact DCLG (Peter Bide: a main author of PPS25), GOSE and EA’s National Planning Team to see if there is a mechanism for considering major planning applications in the floodplain, prior to completion of the SFRA and the carrying out of a comprehensive sequential test (The latter is a huge piece of work for LDC planning officers). CS will be copied into this correspondence.'
I've written to Lindsay Frost at LDC reminding him that Mr Style has been on the point of putting in an application for two years now and asking what the implications would be of considering and reaching a decision on an application before the SFRA has been completed.
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