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Sustainability in context - 2006/10/19 13:41Lewes Matters' concern for sustainability needs to be put in the proper context. The article on LM's home page makes it sound as if the Phoenix development is acceptable provided the developer can tick all the boxes on Pooran Desai's One Planet checklist. It's not. Charles Style is still planning to cram 800 dwellings, 8000 sq m retail (approx twice the size of the Precinct), 7000 sq m office, a cinema and a multistorey car park on the site. He still plans to create a new town centre to compete with the High Street. Unresolved traffic, flood protection and parking issues remain. It doesn't matter if the whole development is covered with windmills and solar panels. The present proposal is completely unacceptable.
It is right to make it clear that sustainability and other green issues should be moved up the planning agenda alongside other essentials like access, water supply, sewers, etc. And, we should be campaigning to have the new sustainability guidelines adopted by the Council made mandatory rather than just advisory. But, be careful of giving Charles Style the impression that all he has to do is sign up to One Planet to get public support his planning application.
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J Holkar
Re:Sustainability in context - 2006/10/20 00:43I agree with John Stockdale about not just ticking boxes but, more importantly in my opinion, is for residents to consider the total impact on our town which will be made by this proposed development, plus the Baxter's site, plus the Lewes House site, plus the Malling Brooks site, plus the Malling Hill Nursery site, plus the bus station, plus the Wenban-Smith site, plus probably the Gorringes Auction site by the railway station. Have our elected representatives and their officers calculated the total number of dwellings which property developers are presently hoping to impose on the town? And their overall impact on things like water, schools, traffic etc. Has there been any joined-up thinking? Has anyone noticed that all bar Lewes House, Baxter's and Malling Nursery are to be built on previously flooded areas, further diminishing the amount of surface water which can be absorbed? It really beggars belief that anyone with any common sense could go along with these proposals.
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AJD
Re:Sustainability in context - 2006/10/25 19:19One area I would like clarified for me concerns flood plains. Historically these would absorb flood water until river levels fell, allowing the water to percolate back without flooding other areas.
Some sustainability experts suggest that those flood plains that are already substantially built over will never be able to fulfil their natural function unless all concrete and foundation material is first removed.
If this is correct, it should be taken into account when discussing flooding implications for Phoenix.
I am still implacably against inappropriate development but see little point in attempting to argue against any development firing ammunition that turns out to be blank.
Turning to JS main point, Lewes Matters' recent concentration on sustainable issues is entirely appropriate. LM is constitutionally "a broad church". It encompasses many shades of opinion from outright rejection of any immediater development of Phoenix to substantial approval of existing plans.
The remit is to communicate.
To make sure that all who live in/work in/care about Lewes know just what is proposed and the likely impacts
To establish through research the consensus opinions of these people
To communicate this back to proposed developers and, crucially, to elected planning committee members and the planningt officials.
National and international focus on energy sources merely brings sustainability a lttle higher on the list for debate and will not obscure the bigger picture. Well, not for this correspondent, anyway.
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