Not in Ore Back Yard
HUGH SULLIVAN
Hastings Borough Council (HBC) has launched a consultation on its draft Local Plan – and stirred the residents of Ore into a hornets’ nest of opposition to several potential housing developments which the Plan could endorse.
Tilekiln Fields
Last Saturday (21 February), a group called Protect Ore Green Spaces convened at Ore Community Centre, objecting to possible development behind the houses on Winchelsea Lane and another east of Rock Lane.
The previous weekend (14 February) a campaign group, Stand Up for Nature, met at Christchurch Hall in London Road to challenge the zoning in the draft Plan of a green meadow known as Tilekiln Fields for potential housing development located between Fairlight Avenue, Fairlight Road and Shearbarn holiday park.
With seats for fewer than 100 attendees, the meeting hall was packed. More than 200 people turned up to hear successive speakers making reasoned objections to building on the site: damage to wildlife habitats, inadequate drainage and risks of flooding.
This Saturday (28 Feb) the Ore Community Land Trust will gather for their AGM in Old London Road. The main agenda item is the potential zoning for housing of land on Graystone Lane within Speckled Wood.
The purpose of the Local Plan, according to Cllr Mark Etherington, HBC’s Green cabinet lead for strategic planning, is to allocate spaces in the borough that will provide needed homes, jobs and services over the next 15 years.
The council is required to align the Plan with national planning policy. Two months ago, Housing Minister Steve Reed renewed the government’s pledge to build 1.5 million new homes across the country by 2029. HBC has been informed that it should build over 700 homes per year, a cumulative total of more than 10,000 over the 15-year Plan period.
On the other hand, among the stated aims of the Plan in its current draft form are the protection and enhancement of existing parks and open spaces; also, “keep[ing] the coastline and countryside safe from too much building”.
Cllr Etherington admits that compliance with the government target will be “very difficult to achieve, because we have very little building land available”. Hastings is already highly urbanised and squeezed by the sea, country parks and High Weald National Landscape [HWNL – a re-labelling of the former Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty]. Cllr Etherington continued: “Our remaining green spaces really matter to us and our administration, and we will all naturally feel concern about increased traffic and the lack of alternative infrastructure, potential flooding, the effects on nature … the choices we need to make will be tough ones.”
Local residents are asked to help by looking at the proposed sites and policies set out in the draft Plan and sharing their views with the council.
Consultation over the draft Local Plan runs until 7 April. For more information visit hastings.gov.uk/localplan
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It’s likely that none of the well meaning complainants have the slightest idea about English Land Law and so will be talking from an uninformed position. Thus their ideas will fall on deaf ears.
I keep mentioning this in these pages but no-one has ever shown the slightest interest in finding out more.