St Anne’s reprieve may be short-lived
By Hugh Sullivan
A news article in HIP 2011 – St Anne’s reprieved – reported on the decision of the planning committee of Hastings Borough Council (HBC) on 28 September to refuse permission for demolition of St Anne’s Church in Chambers Road, Hollington and its replacement by five houses. The decision was applauded by local conservationists who see the church building as a notable architectural design of the mid-twentieth century that should be protected.
But the reprieve looks like being temporary only. The building is not listed, nor registered as a non-designated heritage asset, nor is it in a conservation area, and the planning officer’s recommendation for refusal was not based on any recognition of heritage value. So Victory 1066 Limited, the company which purchased the building, then effectively derelict, in 2020 and made the failed planning application, has now served notice of intended demolition under Part 31 of the Town & Country Planning Order. This Order may allow HBC to set conditions for the manner of demolition but does not seem to provide any other legal basis for intervening, though its planners will continue to exercise controls in relation to any house-building for which permission is subsequently sought.
CREDIT: Bernard McGinley
There were objections made in the original application to the design and impact of the intended replacement housing. But there was also a value put on the building’s current community use – not as a church, which had not hosted a service there for well over a decade and was falling into apparently terminal disrepair, but as a kick-boxing gym offering weekly classes for multiple age groups. The planning officer described the demolition proposal as “result[ing] in the loss of an existing community facility without sufficient justification to demonstrate that the premises is no longer needed”. Could that allow it to be treated as an ongoing asset of community value?
That would be a bizarre outcome, since the gym was created by Ed Lofts himself, co-owner and co-director of the Victory company, as a temporary haven for his martial arts customers when his previous premises at Ashdown House were rescheduled for demolition and mass housing redevelopment a couple of years ago. Lofts says that he has become a developer only by default. His long-term aim, besides providing much-needed housing in an area that needs it, is to raise sufficient cash from the eventual sale proceeds to buy premises that are suitable for a permanent gym complex. If that’s the community use that’s wanted, he’s only too keen to provide it.
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