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Anti Falmer propaganda in The Times today







portlock seagull

Well-known member
Jul 28, 2003
17,609
Wasn't the National Park decided after we put in the planning permission? I simply can't remember, it's so long ago.

Anyway, anyone want to publish his personal details so we can sign him up for Pizza etc?
 


Yorkie

Sussex born and bred
Jul 5, 2003
32,367
dahn sarf
portlock seagull said:
Wasn't the National Park decided after we put in the planning permission? I simply can't remember, it's so long ago.

Anyway, anyone want to publish his personal details so we can sign him up for Pizza etc?

The boundaries of the National park haven't been decided yet.
 


Billy the Fish

Technocrat
Oct 18, 2005
17,594
Haywards Heath
The National park arguement is a waste of time anyway, as that area of land has been earmarked for development in the local plan and has been since our application was made
 


sully

Dunscouting
Jul 7, 2003
7,909
Worthing
Tooting Gull said:
He built primary and secondary schools for the London County Council, play buildings for the handicapped, two residential schemes in Milton Keynes and a nature study centre for deprived children in Epping Forrest.

This always makes me laugh about architects.

He's never built a bloody thing in his entire life! :angry:
 




mona

The Glory Game
Jul 9, 2003
5,471
High up on the South Downs.
Tooting Gull said:
"Stephen Gardiner, an architect,onanist and charlatan, receives an OBE for services to Community Architecture. Stephen trained at the Architectural Association and went into private practice in 1957. He built primary and secondary schools for the London County Council, play buildings for the handicapped, two residential schemes in Milton Keynes and a nature study centre for deprived children in Epping Forest. He has written a book on Le Corbusier and he has just completed The House: its Origins and Evolution, to be published in September. He is a regular contributor to The Times and will lie and bullshit to help his former lover who owns a weekend cottage in Falmer, Sussex."
So an architect who has contributed to the artificial monstrosity of Milton Keynes objects on aesthetic grounds to the community stadium ?
Unbelievable.

As has been said, the nimbys are rich, powerful and have many friends in the media.
 


Publius Ovidius

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
46,681
at home
" roar of the crowd"

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

he cant be talking about us...
 


Rangdo

Registered Cider Drinker
Apr 21, 2004
4,779
Cider Country
So if we get the stadium the village of Falmer will be blown away? Thank f*** for that. Shame we couldn't get that accomplished before we stuck in the planning application.
 




Curious Orange

Punxsatawney Phil
Jul 5, 2003
10,146
On NSC for over two decades...
The offending piece from timesonline in full:

South Downs face relegation
Stephen Gardiner
“New Delay To Falmer” ran the recent dramatic headline in the Brighton Argus newspaper. This referred to the seemingly endless saga over the new stadium for Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, a vast development on the South Downs.

As the planning councillor for Lewes, David Neighbour, said on hearing the latest news: “The club knew it was taking a big risk going for a site in the National Park. We are not surprised the Government now realises it should look again at the alternatives.” The site in question has, after all, been designated as part of an area of outstanding natural beauty.

Amazingly, this story has been going for many years, the end of the inquiry dating back to 2001, the inspector chosen by the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott. After much discussion of other possible sites, the inspector’s decision that year to reject the developer’s proposal was overturned by Mr Prescott in 2005.

However, he was forced to quash his decision because of a mistake he made over the proposed site’s location, which he described as within the built-up area of Brighton and Hove. In the meantime he was replaced in this area of responsibility by Ruth Kelly in a Cabinet reshuffle. After a legal challenge by Lewes Council, she agreed to consider the planning application using the same information that Mr Prescott had when he was provided with all the local objections. A decision is not expected until the summer.

What remains extraordinary to many who love this beautiful image of England is that it still exists. You have only to take a trip along the coastline from old Rottingdean to see the disaster that has already overtaken the South Downs, continuing into the chaos at Peacehaven. Hand the Falmer site to the football club and this will be the outcome: roaring football crowds, vast arc lights, traffic congestion, the blare of pop concerts. And the twin villages of Falmer, already perilously close to extinction, will be blown away.
 


Curious Orange

Punxsatawney Phil
Jul 5, 2003
10,146
On NSC for over two decades...
This bit annoys me

Amazingly, this story has been going for many years, the end of the inquiry dating back to 2001, the inspector chosen by the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott. After much discussion of other possible sites, the inspector’s decision that year to reject the developer’s proposal was overturned by Mr Prescott in 2005.

Completely ignores the fact that there was a second Inquiry specifically looking at the alternative sites, and what was its conclusions..., oh, they haven't been mentioned!!!

:angry: :censored:
 






The Large One

Who's Next?
Jul 7, 2003
52,343
97.2FM
My proposed response. Thoughts, please. BTW, I haven't spell-checked or proof-read it THAT thoroughly...

Dear Sir

I have just read the article by Stephen Gardiner regarding the Falmer Stadium project and its supposed effect on the South Downs.

I sincerely hope that this article is not in line with any policy The Times may have formulated on planning or on football. Without wishing to embarrass Mr Gardiner too much, within six paragraphs, I counted several factual inaccuracies, three highly relevant omissions, and innuendo, one piece of which was hilarious. By anyone’s standards, that’s sloppy. I won’t bore you with all the errors, but a few basic ones include...

Factual inaccuracies
1. The quote from David Neighbour – a man noted locally for not checking his facts before making public announcements - contains two inaccuracies. He says that the stadium would be built in the National Park. One, the stadium is outside the proposed National Park boundaries, and two, the formation of the National Park is being suspended indefinitely due to a court ruling affecting all National Park designations taken a couple of years ago.

2. The Public Inquiry finished in 2003, not 2001.

3. The inspector’s report praised aspects of the Falmer Stadium, but rejected it because he said Sheepcote Valley was a better site, despite not having any evidence to back this up. Mr Prescott’s response to the report was to re-open the Public Inquiry, asking for other sites around the city, (and even two in West Sussex – 6 miles away) to be taken into consideration. The second Planning Inspector found that no other sites were suitable nor available, each for their own reasons, so Mr Prescott, satisfied that Falmer passed on a range of criteria in line with Government policy, approved Falmer. To over-simplify history the way Mr Gardiner has done is to be completely misleading.

4. Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder. The site on which the stadium is to be built is NOT beautiful. It is immediately surrounded on four sides by concrete. To the north, the main A27 trunk road and the Brighton-Lewes-Eastbourne railway line. To the east, Falmer Road, carrying traffic from Lewes, Falmer, the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex to east Brighton and the coast. To the south is the link road between the University of Brighton and the aforementioned Falmer Road. To the west, the 1960s-built sprawl of the University of Brighton (Falmer) site. 1/3 mile is the dissected village of Falmer.

5. Rottingdean does not run straight into Peacehaven. Between the two villages are Saltdean, built largely in the 1930, the Telscombe Tye, a vast (and I used the word advisedly) open countryside running from the South Downs and the cliff tops overlooking the English Channel, and the village of Telscombe Cliffs. The building work is by no means continuous.


Innuendo
1. The stadium project is not ‘vast’.

2. To describe the nearby village of Falmer as ‘twin villages’ is risible. The village is indeed split, by the A27 trunk road, but that was due to the Falmer parishioners prefering their village be split when the road was built in the early 1970s.

3. The statement at the end of the article that a decision is not expected until the summer is an inference that the government have delayed on this project. While the government machine is generally slow, it is in fact Lewes District Council who have delayed matters. The government stated it would consider Lewes’ points of challenge in March 2006, despite them saying that 15 points out of Lewes’ 16 had no basis in law. It wasn’t until October 2006 that Lewes decided to accede to the government’s offer.

Omissions
Far too numerous to list.

I would acknowledge that I am the polar opposite of Mr Gardiner’s views, but I would happily debate the merits of the football stadium with anybody, and I have satisfied myself that Falmer is the right place for the stadium. Every time I read misleading, inaccurate folly opposing the stadium, I strenghtens my resolve further. When someone can provide me (or other supporters of the Falmer Stadium project – who, incidentally are in the majority by quite some distance locally) with that one damning argument against the stadium at Falmer, or the argument that clinches it for another, more appropriate site, I – as will many others - will happily concede.

Sadly for them, I have yet to hear that argument.

Yours etc...
 


Tooting Gull

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
11,033
That is far too good a letter not to send to them.

:clap: :clap:
 


Everest

Me
Jul 5, 2003
20,741
Southwick
My reply...

Dear Sir,

I was amazed at the article "written" by Stephen Gardiner about the proposed community stadium at Falmer. To put it simply, what utter rubbish. Did he not do research on the site, plans, history of the public inquiries? Yes, inquiries, there hasn't been just one, something he fails to mention.

1. As far as I am aware, the boundaries of the National Park are yet to be decided. That area of land has actually been earmarked, since the application for the stadium, for development in the local plan anyway.

2. It is not a "vast" development, it's not Wembley you know. A lot of it will be situated where old and tatty buildings are now.

3. The decision that Mr Prescott gave was only against the first inspector's recommendations, it was NOT against the second inspector after even more research was done on other possible, but totally unsuitable, sites.

4. This "beautiful image" that Mr Gardiner talks about, I have yet to see. I bet he hasn't seen it either. If he has, it's time for him to take a trip to the opticians.

5. "Vast arc lights, traffic congestion, the blare of pop concerts"? The floodlights will be situated under the roofs, concentrating the light downwards. No supporters will be able to drive to and park at the stadium. They will either walk, go by train to the nearby station, or on the park and ride buses. Concerts at the stadium will be strictly limited. The shape of the stadium also concentrates the noise inwards, thereby limiting any nuisance.

6. Twin village of Falmer? What a joke. Falmer village is in fact, split into two by a 4 lane (6 lane at that point) dual carriageway and a railway line. There are also old University buildings littering the outskirts of this village. The only threat to the existence of the village is from the vermin that the village pond attracts.

I suggest that Mr Gardiner visits the site on his own to make up his own mind if this area is actually an AONB or not. Some would say it is, many many more would laugh at that suggestion.

So please tell Mr Gardiner to stop allowing Mr Neighbour to put his tongue up his arse. On second thoughts, it's a good place for a tongue, he seems to talk out that orifice a lot.
 






Rangdo

Registered Cider Drinker
Apr 21, 2004
4,779
Cider Country
Dougal said:
tory scum

Is that specific to this issue or just your general feelings?
 




alan partridge

Active member
Jul 7, 2003
5,256
Linton Travel Tavern
Lord Bracknell said:
That is one of the funniest phrases to come out of the NIMBY camp, ever.

It merely emphasises the fact that they are in total denial of the nature of their community.

I thought it was split down the middle by the thundering superhighway that is the A27. Apparently not. It's two quite separate little villages.

Hmmm....

made me laugh that one, the wanker/wankers
 




Heffle Gull

JCL since 1979
Feb 5, 2004
881
Heathfield
my proposed reply:

Sir

Before taking note of anything mr Neighbour says, one should remember he is a cock juggling thundercunt of the highest order

Yours

heffle gull

Is this ok?
 


Jul 5, 2003
220
The Large One said:
My proposed response. Thoughts, please. BTW, I haven't spell-checked or proof-read it THAT thoroughly...

Dear Sir


Yours etc...

Superb TLO but don't forget that all letters in the Times start with 'Sir' rather than 'Dear Sir' cos they're wot you call POSH don't you know!!

Send it now whist it is still fresh.
 


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