Staying in the Borough
Town sports clubs’ move to Claremont School “won’t proceed”
Hugh Sullivan
The plan to relocate the town’s prime cricket and hockey clubs from Horntye Park to Claremont School appears to have been shelved. Two separate sites, both located within the borough of Hastings, have been identified as potential destinations where the requisite facilities could be developed instead – one for the cricketers of Hastings & St Leonards Priory, the other for South Saxons Hockey Club. Both sites would also be made available for wide community use.
Planning permission was granted by Rother District Council in June 2021 for extensive expansion and upgrading of sports facilities at the school in order to accommodate relocation of both clubs under an intended 50-year ‘community use’ agreement. And, after a series of obstructions and plan modifications, a revised application was finally lodged last November with Hastings Borough Council (HBC) by the Hastings and Rother Sports Trust, owner of the Horntye Park complex, for the redevelopment of the cricket arena as a housing estate to finance the combined move.
But Peter Finch, chairman of Horntye Park Management Company, which is the sole trustee of the Trust, has revealed that, shortly before Christmas, the school expressed “reservations” about the proposed scheme. Now, following further exchanges of correspondence and meetings between the parties, it has been mutually agreed between the school and the Trust that it “won’t proceed”.
In July 2022, when HIP reported on doubts as to whether an earlier version of the planning application to redevelop Horntye would be granted, it was asserted on behalf of the Trust that: “HBC’s Leisure Manager has accepted that there are no other sites available in the borough where such facilities could be delivered either now or in the foreseeable future.”
However Finch says that this was on the basis that the cricket and hockey clubs should be accommodated together, as they were at Horntye. On considering the respective needs of each sport separately, two potential sites have now been identified.
He remains coy about naming either of these but says that Trust’s proposals are “under discussion with, and subject to the approval of, Hastings Borough Council and an education provider”.
Finch further explains:“If the proposals are accepted, after a due diligence investigation has been completed, and the necessary planning permissions granted – including for redevelopment of the Horntye cricket arena the end result could provide a refurbished Horntye Park pavilion plus the first full size 3G football pitch in Hastings, constructed on the same footprint as the dilapidated 23-year astroturf pitch on which South Saxons currently play.”
For further argument put forward on behalf of the Trust, see Peter Finch’s adjacent column.
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