Enforcement Threat over Convent Vandalism
KENT BARKER
Following repeated incursions and vandalism in recent weeks at the former Convent of the Holy Child Jesus in St Leonards, lead member for heritage issues at Hastings Borough Council (HBC) Cllr Julia Hilton has threatened the owners with enforcement action. She told HIP that those who are responsible for the site had adopted a “lax attitude to security” for too long. She added that council officers had “worked really hard to get the owners/receivers to engage” and was now hopeful that the site will be more securely hoarded “as soon as possible”.
The council previously said that its overriding concern remains the risk to life posed by unauthorised people entering the site and that damage to “this important heritage site that includes a Grade 2* listed chapel, must be limited”.
One problem appears to be establishing exactly who is currently responsible for the convent. The registered owners of the 15-acre estate are DKSS Holdings Limited, who paid £3.9 million for it in 2021. Company documents show that they borrowed nearly the entire sum from a Luxembourg-registered company Creo 12 S.a.r.l. The accrued interest on the loan rose to more £1m before the lender appointed a firm of receivers Kroll Advisory Ltd to try to recover their money. Kroll told HIP: “After a previous attempt to sell failed, we engaged in protracted joint venture discussions with another party to bring forward the development as an alternative and, now that has ceased, we will revert to the original intention to market and sell the property.”
Kroll say they are in “almost daily” dialogue with HBC and the local police regarding safeguarding of the building. HBC say they are continuing to work closely with Historic England, the emergency services and other partners to take urgent action. They had identified a number of “priority steps” to secure the listed heritage buildings and reduce unauthorised access to the site.
Nonetheless within days of that statement being released, the Save The Convent pressure group (see page 8) released a video on social media of a person using a hammer to demolish window frames in the curtilage of the listed buildings. In June police made arrests following intelligence of plans for a ‘mass action’ at the site by users of Tik-Tok.
Around the same time, Hastings MP Helena Dollimore wrote to Kroll about the “many incidents of trespass” and demanded to know what the company was doing to secure the estate. Kroll told HIP they had sent a team to the convent “with a contractor to provide a price for the required works to protect the site and buildings”. They appear to accept that the lender – Creo 12 – can be required to “finance any works”.
Before taking enforcement action HBC are legally required to notify Kroll and/or Creo of the works required of them and to allow them a prior opportunity to undertake them.
Meanwhile, the Save the Convent group question whether anyone has any real incentive to prevent further deterioration of the buildings before dangerous structure notices are imposed. They fear that at a certain stage of dilapidation, demolition will be the only practicable option.
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